And All For the Want
by BillA1
Summary: Cowritten with Merlin Missy. Strange dreams are plaguing Aquagirl's nights, and Terry intends to find out why.
1. Chapter 1

**xxxxxxxxxxx  
And All For the Want**  
A Batman Beyond / Justice League Unlimited - R 'Verse Story  
by BillA1 and Merlin Missy  
Copyright November 2007  
Rating: (PG-13)  
**xxxxxxxxxxx**

Disclaimer: The characters and situations are owned by DC Comics / Warner Brothers, and are used here without permission but with good intent. This story is intended for our own enjoyment and is not for profit. Spoilers up through Destroyer and The Call. Set during the Batman Beyond time period. Part of the R 'Verse; while familiarity with that series is recommended, it is not required to enjoy this story. (Whew!)

Summary: Strange dreams are plaguing Aquagirl's nights, and Terry intends to find out why. 

**xxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxx  
PROLOGUE  
xxxxxxxxxxxxx**

A soft snore beside her stirred Merina from her sleep. She blinked her eyes against the dim lights in the bedroom and tried to remember her dream.

She'd been with him again. Her own fingers against her mouth recalled the sense-memory of kisses, and her heart still raced. The night before, she'd had a long dream about fighting Inque by his side, and woken with the taste of cheap takeout on her tongue.

Crazy stuff.

Her lover snored again and then his breath jumped as he woke. "What time is it?"

"Four. Go back to sleep." They had an hour left, and they were both too tired to make any better use of the time.

"You too. And keep it down."

She sighed. "Sorry."

"Don't be." Terry scooted over and gave her a space to settle into as he wrapped his arms around her. Merina rested against him as warm and safe as she would ever be in his embrace.

When she was almost asleep, she heard him ask, "So, who is 'Warhawk'?"

The face from her dreams teased her again. "I have no idea."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxx  
CHAPTER ONE  
xxxxxxxxxxxxx**

She hated watching Terry put on the suit. When they were alone together, nothing between them but sweat, he was hers. The suit, though, slithered around him, transforming Terry into something darker and more alien. Even his voice changed when he was Batman, and the part of him that was hers suffocated inside the dark suit every night. The mask was the worst, and for her sake it was the last to go on and the first to be removed before he reached for her in the night to kiss her.

Both relief and trepidation jolted her when their earbuds buzzed at the same time, and he paused in his costuming to answer.

"Go ahead," Terry said, and Merina counted to five before she touched her own ear and said the same.

"It's Green Arrow," came Metamorpho's worried voice from the other end. "He and Lantern have bitten off more than they can chew in Seattle. Can you two give them backup?"

"On my way," said Terry.

"Pick me up," Merina said, and then the line went dead. They shared a look, which he broke first to put on his mask.

"Come on," he said, and they hurried down to the Cave together.

Bruce wasn't awake yet and wouldn't be for hours, but that didn't stop her from looking over her shoulder into the shadows, wondering if he was there.

Bruce knew about the two of them; they were in his house, for Neptune's sake, and he wasn't deaf. The League probably knew. But she hated giving any of them the satisfaction.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

"Where are you?" Terry radioed as soon as they were in-range.

GL responded: "Pier Twelve. To the north."

Arrow added: "We found a hive of Jennians at the docks but they found us, too." Seattle had been a major hub for alien infestations ten years back, and the dumber species still tried to land there. This was the third time in two months that Arrow had tracked down a hive in his town. "Duck!" A blast sizzled over the speakers and Merina tensed.

"Drop me out over the sound." Terry nodded and flew the 'wing out past where the battle raged below. He could see bright green flashes, which meant that Lantern was still fighting at least. Merina popped open the door and dived out. She'd be back.

Terry looped around to where the Jennians were attacking his friends. Now he could see the docks swarming with purplish-grey aliens, their tentacles holding nasty-looking (and illegal) laser rifles. The one good thing about hundred-to-two odds was that the aliens were as likely to shoot each other as their targets. The bad thing was that those targets were still vastly outnumbered.

He flicked open the controls to the laser cannon, aimed, and set down cover fire just outside of where Lantern had ringed up a bubble. Arrow had found a hole in the bubble – or more likely, Lantern had left him one – and was firing gas arrows into the crowd. A higher concentration of gas and they'd all be burning now, but as it was several of the uglier ones nearest the bubble were already reconsidering their career plans.

Some of the brighter aliens began backing away and running for it. The less bright ones ran for the water.

Merina rose from the sea atop a crested wave. A half-dozen killer whales followed her. Normally they dined on fish, and seals and porpoises when they had a chance, but the Jennians would make a tasty snack. No sharks this time, Terry noticed. Normally she went for sharks.

Arrow mouthed something Terry couldn't hear, and Lantern lifted them both into the air. With the distraction Terry had provided, GL could focus on getting the critters rounded up in a large ring construct. Terry shot at the heels of the slower ones, while Arrow picked off the remainders.

Standard work, once they were organized.

There was a movement inside the gathered crowd of Jennians, and suddenly they began disappearing from the center. Terry just had time to process that before he realized the pier was collapsing. The aliens had probably booby-trapped it before they'd been spotted.  
The large ship headed their way wasn't going to help matters, either.

Terry jammed his comm. "Aquagirl! The _Titanic'_s coming!" From his ship, he watched as she nodded to the whales, trying to get them out of the way of the collapsing pier and the approaching ship, which blew a long, low note of warning.

"Micron!" she shouted. "Instant transport, our coordinates!"

Terry swore and gunned the BatWing under what was left of the pier. Jennians struggled in the water below him, but he didn't have time to worry. If the cracking wood gave way completely, the ship would crash into it. He reset the thrusters to vertical rise and as gently as he could, lifted the pier back into place so GL could ring a stabilizer into place.

How many different constructs could a Lantern ring keep going, anyway?

The ship shuddered into view right beside him and creaked to a stop. The Jennians in the water sputtered and tried to tread, though several were failing. Cursing more, he parked the BatWing and used it as a platform to help him drag aliens out of the water. Moments later, Green Arrow poked his head over the edge of the pier. "Need help?"

"Depends," said Terry, huffing. "What's your take on sushi?"

Once the ship was tugged to another pier, Merina forced water gently away from the pierside. That made removal of the survivors, and the rest, a little easier. Everyone went into GL's bubble, no muss, no fuss, fewer than a dozen dead squids. Still not a bad day, even with the smell.

"'Micron?'" Arrow asked when Merina had helped him throw in the last body.

Terry saw the panic in her eyes. "It's a maneuver we've been practicing," he said.

"Ooookay," said Arrow.

Lantern, coming up beside him, said, "Next time, let the rest of us in on your training exercises, okay?"

"Next time," Merina said.

"Where are we shipping these guys?" Arrow asked, making faces at the prisoners.

"Stop that," Lantern said, but she was smiling.

Terry said, "Jennia's a hole. Sending them back would be a death warrant."

Arrow said, "Waiting to hear objections. And that's a silence. GL, you want to fly them out or go try to grab Barda's motherbox?"

"I'll take the trip. If you're bored, you can come with me."

"What guy could resist an offer to take a load of purple tentacley guys to a barren rock? Count me in."

"Thanks for the help," Lantern said, and she waved to Terry and Merina as she formed a bubble around herself and GA.

Merina smiled and waved at them as they took off. Terry waited until they were out of sight.

"'Micron?'"

She let out a disgusted breath. "I screwed up, all right? For a second, I thought we had someone on the team who could grow to an enormous size. He could've held up the pier."

"Someone big."

"Yes."

"Named Micron."

"Can we drop it?"

And because he could clearly remember the impressive calisthenics from last night, and the weeks before that, and because he was certain that if he pressed her on this that there would be none tonight, Terry said, "Sure." Anyway, there were days when Lantern and Arrow both talked like Shock was still around, and Superman was always saying So-and-So from back in the day could have done a particular job with no problem, so Merina wasn't cornering the market on invisible friends.

But he wondered.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

_The coffee is terrible but the company is just right. She makes a face and adds more sugar while Rex hides behind his own cup. He's shy around her sometimes, and it makes her laugh because they've been friends since they were four, since that birthday party where he and she and Jay-Jay had swiped all the cookies from the mess and his parents and her father and Jay-Jay's granddaddy all yelled at them for making them worry and they were too full of giggles and chocolate chips to care. Part of her always sees him as that little boy, mouth covered in crumbs. _

"What is it?" she asks, finally.

"Nothing."

"You're a terrible liar."

He looks hurt. "I'm a fantastic liar, thank you very much."

She laughs. The mess is empty but for the two of them, and she's glad. She reaches a hand out and touches his arm. "Talk to me."

"I just … That was a close call you had today. Manta doesn't like you much."

"It's mutual. I'm fine and Manta's put away again. It's a good day." She raises her mug, and after a moment, he clicks his against it. She takes another drink of the terrible coffee and tries not to think about how her heart stopped when she saw Rex go under the waves earlier.

"Hey," she says as if she hasn't been thinking about it most of the day, "after your watch is over, do you want to go see that new … " 

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Merina startled from sleep, then settled back again. Ace was downstairs barking at something, probably that same stray cat that had been hanging around the grounds these past two weeks. From another room, Bruce shouted at the dog, who quieted.

Terry's eyes had drifted open with the noise. Before he could close them again, she pressed against him, her mouth seeking his, her hands roaming elsewhere. Sleep, she needed sleep and he needed sleep, but the loss of the face in her dream had left her empty, and Terry was warm and could fill her.

He growled in her ear as she rolled him onto his back, and she answered him with a soft nip of teeth on his shoulder, making him gasp. No grace between them then, no delicacy or pattern, just bodies and surrounding them, the scent that had lingered at the edge of notice all night, a perfume she thought might have been Dana's, still fresh on the sheets, and it didn't matter, it didn't, because Terry wasn't going to be hers, and she was never going to be his, not even now, not even here.

His eyes were shut tight against her, and she closed her own and remembered the bitter flavor of bad coffee and she swallowed the name she wanted to say as they consumed one another again. 

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Flat on his back and everything hurt.

"You're too slow."

Terry bit back his retort. Bruce didn't take excuses during sparring, and he didn't offer Terry a hand to stand up again. The old man had been practicing lately, and even with his body falling apart around him, Bruce could be vicious when he got an edge.

Terry got back to his feet, and just managed to dodge the swipe at his legs. "Right. No more taking it easy on you, old man." Before he could ready his attack, Bruce's blows rained down on him, and then a blow from behind stunned him. The attack 'droid's stun made his teeth ache. Holding in the muscle spasms, Terry curled down and kicked out, sending the 'droid into the far wall, then grabbing Bruce's legs and knocking him off-balance to the mat.

_Just don't let him break anything,_ Terry thought.

Bruce coughed, something deep in his chest, then said, "Better. Keep an eye behind yourself."  
"I hate the rear camera. Makes me nauseous."

"It could save your life. Deal with it."

"Whatever. Are we done?"

"For now. What's your hurry?" But Terry knew from the way Bruce looked at him that he already knew. So he lied.

"I was going to get some sleep."

"Get it later. I've got an executive board meeting this afternoon, and I want you there."

Terry groaned. "You're kidding, right?"

"The board is expecting me to retire again soon. I want to remind them you're going to be there when I do."

He'd only been half-lying about the sleep, which sounded better every minute, certainly better than sitting in a stuffy room in a suit. He trudged towards the Cave's shower, wondering if he could beg off halfway through. She wouldn't mind if he was late, not as much as she'd mind if he cancelled altogether.

Bruce said, "Unless you have other plans, of course?"

Terry paused, shirt over his head. There was his out, in the hook at the end of that question, but he wasn't sure he wanted another round of lectures on why we don't date our coworkers. Privately, he thought Bruce could at least add, "Because they may turn out to be crazy," to the list.

"No. I'll come to the meeting." Terry started the water, and while he waited for it to heat up, he shouted out through the door something that had itched at his mind lately. "Have you ever heard of a guy named Warhawk?"

A long silence passed, while Terry's hand grew warmer under the water. Finally, when Terry had thought Bruce had left without hearing him, the old man said, "No."

Usually, the old man would have asked more. A "Why?" maybe, or "Should I?" Terry shook his head and stepped into the shower. It'd been a stupid question anyway.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

"The trick," Fred said, "is to place the vegetables at the bottom of the pan and then set the veal brisket on top. Then you put enough water in the pan to cover the vegetables, but not the brisket."

The trip to Jennia had been uneventful and reasonably pleasant. Well, maybe not so pleasant for the purple guys with tentacles once they realized where they were being stranded. Still, Fred enjoyed the journey if just for the company. Donna never seemed to mind hearing his jokes, and she was a great tour guide as they traveled through various star systems along the way.

Now as they headed down the hallway of the Metrotower to the computer room to fill out an after action report, Donna seemed strangely quiet. It was as if she was disinterested and yet somewhat amused. "I'm boring you, aren't I, GL?" he finally asked.

She snickered. "Oh, so we're back to 'GL,' huh? Well, yes you are, _Arrow_, but it's okay. Go on."

"I'm hurt," he said with a hand against his chest, and got an annoyed look in return. Good old Donna, not letting him get away with anything. Well, not with much. Well, not with something that would get him in trouble later. "Anyway, I'm going to make stuffed veal when it's my turn to cook on Tuesday."

She coughed. "You know, of course, that no one around here will appreciate your culinary masterpiece, right? This is pretty much a peanut butter and jelly sandwich crowd, not a filet mignon one."

Fred smiled. "I know I'm among barbarians, sure. The important thing is that I get some practice in. Besides, everyone seems to like what I fix." He sighed. "And when things calm down around here, I can start up that restaurant."

He'd learned to cook at a young age. Ten years old and scared of the whole world after his parents were killed by Constantine Drakon of the Society of Assassins, Fred Queen had buried himself in food, and Uncle Roy's demanding, if loving, training on the bow had been the only thing to keep him from puffing up like a balloon. Cooking had become a passion with him and he knew he was very good at it. Uncle Roy had managed his sizeable trust fund until his own untimely death, and sadly added to it afterwards. When things settled down with the League, Fred would take the money and show the rest of the world how to eat.

Donna flashed a smile. "When things calm down," she agreed like she always did, because they both knew things never would. "And I'll come by your restaurant every day and you can make me that salmon dish I like."

"It's a plan."

They'd walked silently past the rec room when she stopped, looked back and said, "I left a video disc in there that I need for my lesson plan next week. Wait here. I'll only be a moment."

Fred sighed. Donna had talked about giving up her day job teaching at an elementary school (West Lincoln Elementary in Lincoln, Nebraska, though she didn't know he knew) but she loved the work too much. How she managed to juggle both jobs was beyond him. He'd been doing League work full-time for almost as long as he could remember.

"Arrow! Help!" It was Donna. A chill ran down his spine as he heard her scream.

He pulled a net arrow out of his quiver and raced back to the rec room. The automatic doors opened, but he didn't enter.

He stood outside the darkened room. "Lantern! Where are you?" he called. There was silence and then a faint weak whisper, "Over here."

Visions of the worst possible scenarios filled his head as he stepped into the room. Ambush. Trap. Uncle Roy had died quickly. Justin and Gear hadn't. "Please be okay," he said to himself, praying Donna was all right. The doors snapped closed behind and the lights came on.

"Surprise!!"

"What the –" Fred stared into a sea of smiling and laughing faces. Donna was standing next to Superman and her laugh was the loudest. A banner over their heads read: "30 Years of Justice."

Supes stepped forward. "Happy anniversary, Arrow."

Anniversary? He slapped his hand to his forehead, then put his net arrow away. He'd completely forgotten. He shook Superman's hand and then shook his head at Donna. She continued to giggle as she hugged him and then whispered, "Sorry, Fred. Happy anniversary."

Fred whispered back, "Thank you ... and you are so dead for this." As he broke the hug, he smiled at her.

Batman and Aquagirl shook his hand next and offered their congratulations. Fred acknowledged them but his eyes locked on Static. God, if this was thirty, that made it five years already. A distress call had been sent from deep space, and Gear and Shock had gone to answer it, five years ago this week. Static had lost his best friend and his only son, and he'd retired right afterward to take care of his seriously ill wife. She'd died six months later. There'd been no question of having a silver anniversary party for Fred, not then; he'd lost his own best friend when they'd buried Justin. Even now it was enough to make him wish they'd skipped the party.

Static offered his hand and a faint smile. "Congratulations, old man."

"Thanks," Fred said shaking the hand vigorously. "I'm honored that you made time to attend."

Static's smile dimmed. "I can't stay, but maybe I can hang around longer at your fiftieth anniversary." The grin Fred remembered Static being so free with in the old days returned for just for a second, then disappeared.

"I understand. I'll be looking forward to it." He watched Static shake hands with Superman and then Donna, though his face was pained as he greeted her. She and Justin had been pretty close right before the end, and seeing her here wasn't making things easier on him. As Static left the room, Fred thought to himself that life certainly hadn't been fair to that man at all.

"Congratulations."

Fred snapped out of his thoughts and looked up to see Big Barda.  
If Superman had been considered the patriarch of the League, no one questioned that Barda was the mom. Fred grinned at her. "I'm sure this was your idea. Thank you," he said. Mr. Miracle stood next to her and offered his hand. Fred shook it. "Did you put GL up to scaring the crap out of me?"

Barda shook her head. "Not at all. She did that on her own." She glanced down at her feet. "You remember my daughter, Avia?" Fred looked down to see a little girl hiding under her mother's cape. The child couldn't have been more than three or four. Barda prodded her forward. "Say hello, dear."

The girl moved further behind Barda's cape, clutching her mother's armored leg.

Fred knelt down on one knee and said to Avia, "Hello there. How are you?" Avia, who was dressed in armor and a cape just like her mother said nothing. Fred offered his hand to the little girl, then froze in horror as he realized he was on his knees with his hand between Barda's legs. He heard Mr. Miracle clear his throat and Fred quickly stood. He looked at Mr. Miracle sheepishly. "I guess I have that effect on women. They see me and run away."

He laughed nervously as Barda smiled at him and said, "Just those women that can't beat you up."

The nervous laugher got a little louder and he was grateful when GL grabbed his hand and led him away. "Come see your cake and gifts, Arrow," she said.

"Yes, my cake," Fred answered quickly as he waved to Avia who finally waved back. Mr. Miracle continued to frown. When they'd taken a couple of steps away, Fred whispered to Donna, "Thanks for the rescue. I thought for a moment Barda might destroy me back there."

"Nah, Mr. Miracle was the one holding the motherbox. If you had stayed around Barda's legs any longer, he might have transported you into a sun." She snorted. "I'm sure that would have ruined your weekend."

"But think of how I could have worked on my tan."

Donna led him to a table where there was a pile of gifts, two large bowls brimming with fruit punch and a large sheet cake decorated in an arrow motif with mint frosting. The other Leaguers gathered around the table and Flash started chanting, "Speech! Speech!"

He looked at the gifts. He could tell despite the obvious attempts to hide the contents, most of the presents were quivers for his arrows. He made a mental note to himself to rotate in the gift quivers over the next couple of weeks before he went back to his standard one, the one his father had used.

Fred put his hands up asking for silence. He was determined he wouldn't emotionally choke up and strangely enough by focusing on Donna, he didn't. "I want to thank you all for this," he said softly. "It certainly was a surprise. Lantern over here should get an acting award for that scream."

There was laughter as she bowed, and Fred took a deep breath before continuing. "On a serious note for a moment, as you know, the League has been my family almost from the moment I was conceived. I've had my membership card since I was fifteen and there hasn't been a day that's gone by without you guys being there for me. I can't tell you how much all this means to me. But I want you to know that you all mean more than I can ever tell you ... more than I can ever say. You guys are the best."

He swallowed hard, turned, looked at the cake and picked up the knife next to the stack of small plates. "Guess I'd better get busy cutting this before we're here all night."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Merina watched Metamorpho cross the room and head towards Terry. No. Not him, towards her as she stood next to him. Metamorpho wasn't smiling and generally that was bad news for anyone in the way. She nudged Terry who looked up as Mason approached.

"We just got a call," he said, looking at her. "Down at Metropolis pier, a forklift driver suffered a heart attack while he was unloading a ship containing explosives. The forklift drove over the side of the pier and the forks punctured the hull below the water line." Mason paused and looked around the room as if he had a secret that he wasn't sure he could share. "They need to keep the ship afloat long enough to get it unloaded ... about twenty minutes."

Merina nodded. "I understand." She put her glass down and looked at Terry. "I'll be right back."

"I'll go with you," Terry said as he set his glass down next to hers.

Mason stepped between them. "No you won't, Batman. I make the assignments around here. You stay and enjoy the party. I'll be her backup. We'll be back before you guys even miss us."

Merina secretly smiled. Next to Superman, Metamorpho had been in the League the longest. He'd been the Operations Officer for over ten years, ever since Mister Terrific had retired. It was a necessary job and one that no one else wanted. It was a difficult job to run the business end of the League and work with massively over-inflated egos, but no one did it better than the old former Marine.

She nodded at Terry signaling it would be okay and Terry grunted an acknowledgment before he left to join Fred by the cake.

"Transporters?" she asked as they hurried down the corridor.

"Negative. That glitch is back. I'll carry you." They reached an outer door. She wrapped her arms around his neck and Mason picked her up, changed the lower half of his body to helium, and propelled them quickly toward the harbor.

"So why'd you really decide to come along?" she asked as they traveled.

"Thought you might need some help."

She raised an eyebrow. "You know I don't, if it's as simple as you described."

He smiled. It was a charming grin that radiated warmth. "Humor me. I get tired of being in the Watchtower all the time. Today, I just wanted to get out of the office." She reflected he might be thinking about the past today, too. Way back when she'd looked through everyone's records right after she first came to the surface, she'd read that his wife had died around the time Arrow had joined up. Another alien raid. They'd had no children. His life was the League as much as Arrow's was, as much as all their lives were.

The harbor was below them now and Mason carried her out far enough and low enough so that she could safety dive into the water.

"Considered yourself humored," she said as she loosened herself from his grip and let herself fall. It was such an exhilarating feeling to be in the water. The way it surrounded her, the way she became one with it, was something she could never adequately describe to Warhawk no matter how many time she tried.

Warhawk? Why did she think that name when she clearly meant Terry.

Back to business. She issued a mental call to a pod of sperm whales traveling outside Metropolis on their way to the Arctic. The whales responded quickly. As they approached, she directed a whale to get on each side of the ship and lift it above the waterline and push it against the pier. She raised a wave of water that carried her to the landing. Turning to the dock leader, she said, "You have fifteen minutes. Not one second longer."

"You heard her," he shouted out to his people. "Fifteen minutes. Now move it."

There was a scurry of activity on the dock as crews manned cranes and forklifts to get the explosive cargo unloaded. Merina stepped off the wave onto the slick wood and joined Mason near the ship.

He smiled. "Very much like your father."

She returned his smile, but it faded quickly. "Except he would have probably given them ten minutes."

Mason chuckled and nodded. "Yup, that sounds like him."

She frowned. "The longer the whales are in this shallow water, the greater the chances are they will be injured ... or catch an infection." She paused and gritted her teeth. "I should have said ten minutes."

Mason was silent for a moment then he shouted at the dock leader. "Hey you, hurry up. You got five minutes left." Then he turned to Merina, "Believe me when I say I know what it is to operate out of someone's shadow." She grinned weakly at him. Then she heard a loud noise that sounded like a million glass bottles breaking all at once.

Someone yelled, "Look out!"

In an instant Merina caught a glimpse of the cable from the crane that was offloading the explosives whipping toward her and then her world went black. She heard what sounded like a clang of metal and Mason grunting in pain and then just as suddenly the light came back to her world.

Mason lay on the ground at her feet as the dock leader came running up to her. She knelt down next to him, "Metamorpho! Metamorpho, are you okay?"

"It was the most amazing thing I ever saw," the dock leader said. "One of the cables on the crane snapped and dropped that box of explosives. Metamorpho here turned into a slide and caught the box and at the same time he turned into lead or something and wrapped himself around you." The man took a deep breath. "Lady, if he hadn't done that the cable would have cut you clean in half."

"Actually it was iron," Mason said as he stood up. "I was afraid the cable would cut through lead."

The dock leader snorted, "Mister, I don't care if it was silly putty. You saved us all. Thank you." Then he turned to Merina, "And lady, if I was you, I'd find a special way to thank this man because he saved your behind big time." He made a waving gesture. "We're done here. Thank you both."

Merina looked at Mason. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Don't you have some whales you need to get back on the road?"

She grinned. "I do. Thank you for saving my life, Metamorpho."

"Don't give it another thought. And you can call me Rex."

What was it that Terry said all the time? Oh yes. A goose stepped on her grave.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Terry checked the time. He needed to head back home soon. Gotham's streets wouldn't stay quiet because he was at a party, not when it was for a Wayne-Powers function, and not when it was for a friend.

Flash was telling the end of a joke: "And she said, 'Fifty bucks, same as in town!'" Fred roared with laughter while Anissa rolled her eyes and walked away.

Five minutes. He'd give Merina five more minutes to get back to the Watchtower. He'd make a reasonably casual mention of going back home, and an even more casual reminder of the smuggling case she was helping him with back in Gotham. Bruce had called earlier with a lead, though he'd said to wait until nightfall to follow it up. The breed of mutants used as muscle in this gang couldn't come out in sunlight.

Dark had fallen half an hour ago.

Bruce would glare at him for stalling, especially because Bruce would know why Terry was stalling, although he'd only know half of it. Bruce hadn't yet figured out Terry's competition with Merina's imaginary boyfriend, who Terry somehow knew would wait for her to get back from her mission with Metamorpho.

"Jerk," Terry said to himself.

"It wasn't that bad of a joke," said Superman, smiling around his glass of punch.

"Not Flash. Warhawk."

Superman set his glass down. "You know her?"

_Her?_

**xxxxxxxxxx**


	2. Chapter 2

**xxxxxxxxxxx  
And All For the Want (2/6)  
**A Batman Beyond / Justice League Unlimited - R 'Verse Story  
by BillA1 and Merlin Missy  
Copyright November 2007  
Rating: (PG-13)  
**xxxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
CHAPTER TWO  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

"You lied to me."

Bruce turned around in his chair. The study was dark, and the hour was late, and Terry was sore from the beating he'd taken at the hands of the smugglers, but none of that mattered as much as the words that had been echoing in his head all night.

"I told you where to find Callahan."

"Not about Callahan. Warhawk. Superman told me all about her. Said you two used to be friends."

"Your point?"

"You said you didn't know anyone by that name."

"No. I said I didn't know a 'guy' by that name. Warhawk's a woman."

Terry spat out a breath. "You're a real piece of work sometimes, you know that, Bruce?"

"Just coming that to conclusion now?"

"Don't screw around with me. What if I needed that name for a case?"

"You didn't. She's been off-planet for decades, and she's not coming back."

"Then why didn't you just say so?"

"Because you didn't ask."

"You keep saying 'she's.' Superman said he hadn't seen her in years. Is she still alive?"

Bruce nodded once. "She's not using that name anymore. She goes through names every decade or two. Last I heard, she was back to using her real name."

"Hol. Superman said."

"Superman dwells on the past too much."

"Did they date?"

Bruce blinked in surprise, and Terry marked a score on the card he kept in his head. "No. They never did. And before you ask, I never dated her, either."

"Then why all the secrecy?" Terry threw up his arms. "You and Superman both get weird about the old days."

"You didn't need to know."

"You didn't even know why I was asking."

"Yes, I do."

Several scenarios played out in Terry's mind as the anger boiled inside of him. "So do you listen outside my door at night or did you just plant a camera in the room?" Bruce stared back without blinking. "I can't believe you don't trust me."

"I trust you. I can't afford to trust your girlfriends, and neither can you. The mission ... "

"The mission doesn't mean I cut myself off from the world just because you did."

"Anyone you bring into our world is in danger! Any of them could bring this down around us!"

"Then you should be happy Merina's a costume. She's used to keeping secrets." And there it was, open between them now.

"Break it off with her, Terry. Do it quickly and cleanly. You don't want ... "

"Here we go again."

Bruce said more loudly, "You don't want to be involved with a teammate. It won't end well. It never does."

"Arrow's folks got married," Terry replied, just because he could.

"Arrow's parents died. She will hurt you, or you will hurt her, and you will still have to rely on each other for your lives and someone will be killed because you can't keep your pants zipped."

The certainty in his voice always nettled Terry the most, but he also remembered the faraway look on Superman's face as he'd talked about Hol.

"Who died? Back in the old League. Who was killed when someone got too close?"

Bruce was much better than Superman at hiding his thoughts away, and still a shiver went through Terry as the old man said, "Everyone."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

  
Donna's shoulders ached. She flexed her arms and leaned back trying to find a comfortable sitting position in a chair that was too old and too worn. With all the money Metamorpho kept preaching that the League must save during his financial meetings, she hoped a new chair for the computer room was in the budget.

She'd found the file in the archives that she was looking for: Shayera Hol, alias Hawkgirl, alias Warhawk. The file said she was Thanagarian, a founding member of the League, part of the resistance against the Thanagarian invasion. She married another League member named Carter Hall and left the League, and Earth, shortly after Hall's death.

Something was wrong. There was information here, but not enough of the right information. There was no reference to any missions this Hol person had been on.

Anywhere. Or ever.

It was as if she'd showed up one day to found the League and then quietly left within a year of her husband's death without ever having done anything. Or someone had gone back into the files and made it look that way.

Donna didn't notice Fred walk in until he pulled up a chair next to hers. She smiled as he sat down. He glanced up at the screen then back to her. "Doing some research?"

Donna's smile faded. "Batman asked me. Did Aquagirl tell you about the weird dreams she's been having?" He shook his head. "She keeps dreaming about some guy named Warhawk. She's told me all about him. Turns out, there was a real Warhawk in the League. Superman knew her. Batman wants me to track down her current location."

Fred studied the pictures of the woman on the screen for a moment. "She can't still be alive, can she?" he said softly. "She's been gone more than fifty years."

"Strangely, there's nothing of real substance here," Donna said, shaking her head. "But no mention of her after she left, and you're right, it was more than fifty years ago." She stood and stretched, taking a deep breath and flexing her shoulders again. Her shoulders made a loud popping sound and Fred laughed. Donna smirked. "Don't laugh, I'm old." She paused for a half a second before adding, "Just like you."

She sat down again in the chair and brought her hands to her lips. "Tell me about Shayera Hol or Warhawk or Hawkgirl within the last fifty years," she said.

"I think Dad might have mentioned someone ... "

Donna's ring glowed in response. "Standby," the ring answered back in Donna's own voice. "Standby. No additional information on Shayera Hol or Warhawk or Hawkgirl in sector 2814 beyond a reported medical treatment for a Warhawk forty-four years ago."

"Oh. Sorry," Fred said sheepishly. "I thought you were talking to me." He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest and sighed.

"What was the nature of the medical treatment?" Donna said as she reached under her chair and pulled out a gift wrapped package, which she pushed toward Fred. The look of delight on his face as he took the box warmed her heart. She'd seen the disappointment on his face when he'd surveyed the mountain of presents at his party.

"Left ocular enucleation," the ring answered.

Donna frowned. "Consult the Central Power Battery," she said. "Provide me with any available data on Shayera Hol or Warhawk or Hawkgirl within the last fifty years outside of sector 2814."

"Standby…Standby. Shayera Hol, also known as Warhawk and Hawkgirl. Native of the planet Thanagar located in the star system Polaris. This system is incorporated into sector 3559. The Green Lantern responsible for this sector is Haly-Mote. Shall I contact the responsible Lantern?"

"No. Continue." Then she quickly added, "Wait. What is her current location?"

"Unknown. Last known contact with a Green Lantern was in sector 872 six months ago. The Lantern responsible for this sector is Tor-Chal. Shall I contact the responsible Lantern?"

"Wow," Fred exclaimed. He'd ripped the wrapping off her present and held up the gift box. "Just what I wanted. I've been looking at this set of knives for weeks. How'd you know?"

Donna brought her finger to her lips, looked at Fred and said, "Shhh." She wrote "872" on a slip of paper in front of her and then said, "No. End inquiry." She turned back to Fred who was all smiles at the eight piece knife set from Germany. "Don't act like it's a surprise that I stalk you," she answered. It was hard not to laugh at Fred and she guessed that he must have been as funny as all get out when he was a child at Christmas.

"I just figured that any good chef should have at least one decent set of knives," she continued. "And I know if left to your own devices you'd spend all of your money making a leaf-raking arrow or something silly like that rather than the stuff you really want."

Fred nervously bounced his leg as he stared at the knives. "You know," he started and then he paused, looked into her eyes and said, "Thank you, Donna. This means a lot to me. It really does."

He leaned closer and she thought for a moment that he would kiss her. Then he seemed to realize where he was and covered with a hand through his hair and a smile. To Donna, it felt like Justin's ghost had walked between them, and not for the first time.

"I know," she said after a minute, for something to say. "Now I have to get back to work. If you're going to stay you have to be quiet, okay?"

"Like a church mouse," Fred said as he removed one of the knives from the package.

Donna stood. "Contact the Green Lantern of ..." She looked down at the paper in front of her and then added, "Sector 872." After a moment, a holographic image appeared in front of her. It was a four-armed Green Lantern named Tor-Chal. She'd encountered him before.

"Greetings, Green Lantern," Donna said. "I require your assistance on a matter most urgent."

"Greetings, Green Lantern," Tor-Chal replied. "How may I assist you?"

Donna frowned. "I'm looking for a female Thanagarian. She used to operate under the name Warhawk, though that was approximately fifty years ago. Can you help me locate her?"

He frowned. "Lantern, do you have any idea how many habitable worlds are in my sector? You want me to find one female Thanagarian out of perhaps two hundred billion beings using only the name you have from almost fifty years ago?"

Donna bit her lip. Tor-Chal was right. It was a tough assignment and it would be an expensive one. "Her real name is Shayera Hol, though she's probably not using that alias either. If it helps, she has no left eye."

Tor-Chal's eyes narrowed and he was silent for an uncomfortably long time. "I may know of a woman," he finally said. "But her name is not Warhawk. If it is who I think, she and her band of mercenaries are well established in this sector."

"Is she a criminal?" Hol wouldn't be the first Leaguer to go rogue, Donna thought. She considered that Tor-Chal placed emphasis on the word, 'may.'

"This woman is not wanted by the law at the moment, but that is only because she ensures her operations are on the periphery of being legal."

Donna exhaled sharply. "Green Lantern, I understand the difficulty of my request, but I will not meet with just anyone. It must be the Thanagarian who was Shayera Hol. Can you find her and set up a meeting with her for me?"

Tor-Chal was silent, then he smiled slightly. "There is much risk in doing this, Green Lantern." He slowly shook his head. "It could be very dangerous."

There it was. Donna pursed her lips together. "I understand the risk to you ... and to me. I would not ask if I didn't think it was important. If you are successful in arranging a meeting with the one I seek, you may name your price."

Fred dropped the knife he was holding and was now looking at her.

Tor-Chal nodded. "I will contact you with a time and location. Tor-Chal out." The holographic image faded.

Fred stood. "What did you mean when you said he could name his price?"

Donna didn't make eye contact with Fred. "It means exactly what you think it means, Fred. We're all adults here. This is how we do things in the Corps. We barter and everything is on the table." She toyed with her ring. She knew the history, knew things hadn't always been this way. The Civil War had changed everything. The Guardians and their defenders had lost, and the old ways had ended. Favors begat favors. Batman and Aquagirl both were going to owe her big for this one.

There was silence. She looked up to see Fred looking at the floor. She sighed. He would never understand the personal sacrifices Green Lanterns sometimes had to make if they wanted to accomplish anything outside their own sectors.

"Glad you liked the knives," she said as she turned and walked out of the room.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

  
Terry wasn't going to admit to the nausea, particularly when the other two seemed to be coping so well, but he hated boom tubes. Using the coordinates Lantern had gotten from her contact, they'd landed on a dusty little planet circling a distant but hot blue sun. The atmospheric adjustors inside his suit hummed, audible only to his ears, as they filtered out the worst of the dust and tried to compensate for the heat.

Beside him, GL's greenish aura was a comfort, but Merina wasn't even wearing shoes. The hunted look he'd gotten used to these last several months had been replaced with another expression on her face. Anticipation, maybe, or fear.

"This better be worth it," Terry said. "I've been in garbage dumps nicer than this."

"Is that why you never invite me over to your place?" GL asked.

They went inside. The bar lived down to his expectations. In the corners, he spied at least six or seven different alien species sitting at tables with drinks that fizzed and fumed. There was music coming from somewhere behind the bar, flat and out of rhythm, just loud enough to cut like a toothache.

There were two Thanagarians in the room. The woman, the one they'd come to see, sat facing the bar, her left side against the wall. The male sat behind her and towards them, flanking her. A bodyguard, Terry guessed.

"I said to only bring one person with you," said Hol. "Can't you count?" Her voice cut through the sounds of the bar, though no one else reacted. How many of the goons around them were on her payroll?

Terry went to retort but Lantern grabbed his shoulder. This wasn't their show. Merina glanced back at Terry. "I can. He can't. But he can wait outside if you're afraid of him."

The woman smirked. "Sit down."

Merina took the seat opposite Hol. Lantern dragged Terry to a table close by, just as far away as the other Thanagarian, then gargled something in an alien tongue he didn't recognize. The bartender brought over two mugs of a brown liquid Terry had no intention of even sniffing, much less drinking.

"You're Arthur's girl."

"Yes."

"And you know who I am."

"I know who you were."

Terry watched the male Thanagarian. He wore a mask that matched Hol's: simple, graceful feathers off to either side of his face, and eyes that gave nothing away. The music blared and Terry felt the beginnings of a migraine.

It was then that he noticed that all of the patrons in the bar were looking at them. His stomach groaned as the uneasy feeling came back while he speculated that perhaps _everyone_ in the bar was in the woman's employ.

"What do you want?"

"I have questions for you." Ah damn. Up until now, Merina had put on her royal act, self-assured and completely composed. But Terry heard her voice catch, and Hol certainly did too.

"Lucky for you, I deal in information among other things. But questions cost money. I can't help noticing that you didn't bring any."

Merina didn't respond at first. The truth was, GL was the only one who carried any kind of credit, but they all knew that Hol just had to name a too-high price.

"I'm calling in a favor."

"Do I owe you one?"

"You owed my father. He was kind to you when almost everyone else cast you out." _Thank you, Superman, for running at the mouth when prompted._

Hol's mouth tightened. "One question."

Merina shut her eyes. For a moment, Terry wanted her to ask about the weather, ask about babies, ask about anything. He wanted to get up and leave this crappy bar and its crazy patrons and go home and make love and never hear one particular name again as long as he lived.

"When you left the League for the second time and came into space, you took a new name. I'm guessing it's because most of Thanagar wanted you dead, and I'm also guessing that's why you still don't keep the same name for long. I don't really care. But the name you went by once was Warhawk, and I want to know why."

If Terry hadn't been keeping an eye on the male, he never would have noticed him twitch. Hol meanwhile turned milk-pale under her mask.

"It was a joke," Hol said. "A joke on myself. Someone said the name to me once." She took a quick sip of her drink. For someone who dealt in subterfuge, she covered badly. As she set the mug down, she recovered. "If you ask me, that was a terrible way to waste a favor."

"Who said it to you?"

Hol's jaw tightened again, but she was no longer caught off-guard. "One favor, one question. Sorry."

"Why do you want to know?" asked the male, the first he'd spoken. Hol turned around to glare at him, but he gazed serenely back at her. Hol dropped the stare first and sulked into her drink. Terry bit back his own smile. The male wasn't her bodyguard, or at least, that wasn't all he was.

"Dreams," Merina said, and that distracted tone was back. "I've had dreams. There was someone named Warhawk. A man, not you, but he has eyes like yours. I dreamed about you, too," she added. "But he's the one I need to find. I think he needs my help."

The knuckles on Hol's hand were white as she gripped her mug. "He's a figment of your imagination. Somebody's sick idea of a joke. Sorry, sweetheart."

"You do know him." Hope lit Merina's face, and something else that Terry didn't like at all.

"He's dead," Hol said. "And as far as you're concerned, so am I. Get out of my bar."

At the word "dead," Merina deflated. Terry broke the unstated rule and got up from his chair. He saw the male Thanagarian remove a weapon from his belt, but GL was right there and would probably buy them time if this turned ugly.

"Come on," he said. "Time to go. She's not going to tell us anything." Was he a little happy at the news that You Know Who wasn't real?

"He can't be dead," said Merina, more confused than upset. "He's ... No."

"Not big on reality, is she?" Hol asked Terry, and for the first time he saw her left eye, or at least the slick black cap where it ought to be. Her other eye, behind the lens in her mask, watched him coldly. Up this close, he could see the scars on her chin and neck, and a long, twisted line of scar tissue down one withered arm. The woman in the files had been beautiful, her green eyes sparkling from the handful of photographs.

"She's right," Terry said to Merina. "Shayera Hol died years ago. Let's get out of here." She stood up and stared at Hol.

"Before the trouble starts," suggested the Thanagarian male. Terry had never even heard his name.

Merina let him steer her out of the bar. Lantern came out behind them, her personal force field shielding them from a parting attack. Not that he was expecting one. Hol might not have much in the way of honor left, but she'd have no use for killing them right now.

Lantern keyed the way home into their borrowed motherbox, and called up a boom tube home. Even as it roared to life, Terry felt his stomach start to lurch in anticipation.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

  
When the boom tube disappeared from view, Shayera let out her breath and waited for him to join her at the table. As soon as his hands slipped over hers, her jitters melted away.

"What the hell?" she said, not really asking him.

"Will you be all right?"

"I will be. Did you read them?" He nodded. "And?"

"You're not going to like it."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

  
Bruce was talking to someone. Terry paused at the top of the stairway. That there was another voice in the Cave was astonishing enough. That Terry felt he almost recognized it was next to impossible.

" ... as we could," the voice said in what Terry felt was a diplomatic measure.

"I didn't think she'd like having visitors," said Bruce.

Terry cat-pawed his way down the stairs, and saw a large green face taking over the entire screen of the computer monitor. Bruce was talking to someone long-distance. Extremely long-distance.

"You could have warned us," said the green man reproachfully.

"You haven't called in five years," Bruce said in the same tone. "I didn't know where to find you. And I didn't think either of you kept in contact with the Lanterns anymore."

"We had a run-in with ours six months ago. _Your_ new Lantern is quiet." Terry's memory finally threw up a name: J'onzz. Another one of the founding members of the League. A telepath, according to the records.

"I wouldn't know. And unless she's secretly planning on betraying the League to someone else, I don't need to know."

"She's not the one you need to worry about. Nor is your protégé."

"I don't worry about his loyalty. Tell me about Aquagirl." A bad feeling grew in Terry's gut. Had Bruce arranged for them to get scanned by this guy? Did he distrust Merina that much?

"She believes she's losing her mind. I'm not sure she's wrong."

"But?"

"You know what she was asking about."

"Warhawk. The other one. Tell me it's a coincidence. Tell me her father told her about Shayera when she was a baby."

"I'd love to. But the face in her mind is the same face that was in yours and in John's."

Bruce let out a breath. "That's not possible."

"Nevertheless. There were other faces as well, none that I recognized but to her they are as real as Warhawk."

"Did you tell Shayera?"

"Of course. She's taking it as well as you might expect."

"Just don't let her kill anyone until after she sobers up." He paused. "How are the two of you doing?"

"We're alive. Her remaining eye is starting to bother her but she won't see a doctor about it."

"She could come here."

"No." That had the finality of "old argument" all over it, and Bruce didn't press.

"Tell her I said hello."

"If you see Clark, give him our best. I'm afraid we didn't have a chance to say so when the others were here."

Bruce nodded. "Stay safe."

The Martian smiled, and then his face melted. Where he'd been blocky and green, now he was a masked Thanagarian, the male in the bar with Hol. He raised a hand in farewell, and was gone.

When the transmission closed, Terry stepped out of the shadows. "Bruce?"

Bruce lowered his head and smiled tightly. "You should have come out while he was still on the channel. He probably would have apologized for her."

"That was J'onzz, right? The Martian."

"J'onn."

"And they're ... "

"Old. And lonely. And sometimes the best thing you have is to have someone around who knows what it's like to be you." That was probably as close as Bruce was ever going to get to saying he understood Terry's current relationship, and Terry accepted it with a nod.

"Must be weird, though. I mean, he reads minds, right?"

"She's the only one he never could. If he'd told us as much, we might have all been spared a lot of grief."

Too many questions, and Bruce was never one for answering. But there was just one he needed to know. "Who is Warhawk? The other one?"

Bruce turned away. Terry felt the angry words ready to pour out. Bruce had his telepath friend read their minds but when it came to a simple question he didn't like.…

Bruce sat down and indicated the chair across from him. Confused and annoyed, Terry flung himself into the other chair.

"Terry, did I ever tell you about the first time I met you?"

"I was there. The Jokerz were following me."

"Not then. When I was young. It all started with a man named David Clinton."

Terry listened.

**xxxxxxxxxx**


	3. Chapter 3

**xxxxxxxxxxx  
And All For the Want (3/6)**  
A Batman Beyond / Justice League Unlimited - R 'Verse Story  
by BillA1 and Merlin Missy  
Copyright November 2007  
Rating: (PG-13)  
**xxxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
CHAPTER THREE  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Anissa pinched the bridge of her nose and looked at the kids. Okay, so they were both in their twenties now, but as far as she was concerned, Aquagirl would always be Arthur's youngest, and Flash would be Wally's grandson.

"Oh, come on," Flash said. "You gotta tell me."

"I do not," said Aquagirl, a blush starting at the back of her neck. He'd been wheedling her about her weird dreams since their shift had started.

"Enough," said Anissa at last. "I don't want to hear another word about this today."

"Fine with me," said Aquagirl.

"But it's kind of cool," said Flash. "'Rina had a dream about this old lady, and then she met her. Who else are we going to meet?"  
"Nobody," said Anissa.

"But they could all be real."

"She said he was dead," Aquagirl said, turning from her console and resting her arms.

"But you remember the guy, right?" said Flash. "Well, maybe he was alive. Maybe he still is, and Hawkgirl isn't telling." Anissa remembered her father mentioning that name a few times. Those were also the few times she remembered her dad swearing. He'd carried the scars he'd gotten from the Thanagarians to his grave. When they'd captured him, they'd put him in a jail cell with the rest of the "agitators" from Metropolis and tried to convince the humans they were working in their best interests by taking over the planet.

"Maybe you've been brainwashed," said Anissa, mostly to herself.

"Hey, yeah!" said Flash, zipping past her to the computer. "That could be it! You were kidnapped and brainwashed, and now you have memories of someone you met while you were being held."

Aquagirl shook her head. "But I remember other things, too. Batman was there, and Superman."

"Maybe they were all brainwashed," said Flash.

Anissa asked, "What are you doing?"

"Checking the records to see if there are any aberrations. Someone who went through all the trouble of wiping our memories might have slipped up wiping the data files."

Anissa raised her eyebrow and glanced at Aquagirl, whose mouth was open. Coming from Jay-Jay, this was pretty high level thinking.

Hadn't Lantern said something about the Hol woman's records looking suspicious?

Moments later, Flash let out a grunt of disappointment. "Man, they sure were thorough."

"Who was?" asked Batman, coming in to Ops. He was another kid too, but he carried himself like an actual adult.

"The people who wiped 'Rina's memory," said Flash.

"Flash had a theory," said Anissa. "It was wrong."

"Hey, just because I can think outside the box ... "

"You think outside the solar system, Flash." She was rewarded with a glare and a stuck-out tongue. Batman cleared his throat.

"Aquagirl, can I have a word with you?"

She looked at Anissa. "Do you need me here, Thunder?"

"Just don't leave the tower." Anissa watched the pair as they went. She'd have to chat with the girl later. Aquagirl didn't have a mom or sister to talk with about certain things, and the last thing any of them needed was a baby in the Watchtower.

"I want you to run a scan of Sector Twenty-Six," Anissa told Flash as she turned back to her console. "Someone called in a sighting of something that could have been a splicer or could have been a Moggian. I want to know which before we send someone in."

Flash grumbled and went to work. Anissa sat back another moment in thought. What if they had been brainwashed and the computer files changed? How would they know?

She shivered, and then returned to her work.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

  
"Tell me more," said Terry, as soon as the door closed.

"Not you, too."

"I mean it. Tell me about the things you've seen. Tell me about … you know who." The way he tightened his jaw as he said it warmed her heart, and she only just stopped herself from kissing him.

"He's strong, and he's brave," she said, closing her eyes and picturing Warhawk's face. "He's got a short temper. He's trying to live up to an ideal he thinks he can't achieve, and as smart as he is, he never figures out that it's the attempt that's important, not reaching it." She opened her eyes again. "He reminds me of you."

"What's his real name?"

"Rex." Terry's mouth quirked again as she said it.

"Do you know his last name?"

She thought back, then shook her head. "I should, but I don't."

"What about the others? The ones you think we should know."

She bit her lip and then said, "There's a boy, much younger than the rest of us, a Green Lantern. He's not from America. I want to say he's from China, but that's not right, either."

"What about Micron?"

"He has a child. A baby girl, I think. He loves his family. He's always talking about his sisters, his nieces and nephews, his mother. He thinks the sun rises and sets on his wife. Why do you want to know about them?"

"A conversation I had with the old man."

"About what?"

"I want to collect more information before I go into that. Tell me more about Micron's powers."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

  
"Want a mocha or anything while I'm there?" Flash asked.

"No," Anissa answered. "I'm good. But you know what? Do me a favor and see if Aquagirl and Batman are in the cafeteria. You don't need to say anything to them if they are. Just let me know if you see them."

"Checking up on them, huh? Of course you realize that if they're not in the cafeteria, it doesn't mean they've left the building, right?"

She frowned. "Don't you have to get coffee or something?" It wasn't a question.

Flash grinned and zipped out the door almost knocking Barda over as she entered the ops center.

Barda gently shook her head as she stared at the empty doorway where Flash had been an instant before. "Don't tell me. Mocha break, right?"

"Oh yes," Thunder confirmed. "You're here late, aren't you?" It had seemed to her that in recent years either Barda or Superman were there all the time.

"Just catching up on the filing. Anything I should know about before I call it a day?"

"Negative. Nothing going on that the local law enforcement can't handle. In fact ..."

She stopped as her earpiece crackled. Barda put her finger to her ear.

"Say again," Thunder said as she adjusted the audio gain on the console and tried to identify the owner of the earpiece. "Say again. You came in garbled."

Her heart went cold as she suddenly heard a child's scream in her earpiece, then a man's voice weakly say, "Vundabar."

What happened next was a blur, Thunder would later tell Batman, as Barda screamed in a voice filled with terror, "Scott!" In an instant, she'd whipped out her motherbox, called up a boom tube, and ran into the portal as fast as Anissa had ever seen anyone run.

Scott? Oh Lord, was that Scott Free? That meant the child was ...

Anissa called Superman.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Sleep didn't come easy these days anymore. It hadn't since Lois died. But here in the Fortress, as he stood in front of the glass cages of the alien creatures he'd collected, there was a sense of calm. 

But Clark had learned a long time ago that calm was just a temporary state of being. It was a state that the Starro creature in front of him never seemed to attain. He was watching the agitated animal fling itself against the glass observation wall again and again when he got the familiar buzz in his ear.

"Go ahead," he said. It was on his private channel.

"Superman. Thunder here. We've got a situation." She paused. "I think Mister Miracle's in trouble. Barda's already gone to help."

He frowned. "I'm on my way. Where are they?"

His breath caught when Thunder replied, "I can't get a fix on Barda, but Mister Miracle is in Bailey, New Hampshire. He's not answering his earpiece."

"Give me a beacon to his location!" Clark leaped in the air and flew out of his underwater entrance to the Fortress. Once clear of the watery access, he flew at super speed south toward the northeast corner of the United States. In an instant, he was hovering over Nova Scotia and pressing his finger to his ear.

"Transport me to Mister Miracle's location. Now!" Without any acknowledgment from Thunder, Clark materialized in the living room of a house.

What he saw stayed with him the rest of his life.

He stood in a pool of blood. There was a child at his feet, blood leaking from her lifeless body.

Avia?

No. Not Avia. The hair coloring was wrong.

At the child's feet was a black shape with no substance, like a shadow, its sticky green body fluids mingling with that of the child's. Clark held his breath and closed his eyes for a moment, hoping that he could make the scene disappear just by wishing.

It didn't.

"Scott! Barda!" he yelled. "Answer ..."

He saw Scott. He was slumped over in a corner, his arms outstretched covering and protecting the small broken body beneath him.

"Oh, God. No," Clark whispered. He floated over to the body covered with huge animal bite marks. "Barda! Where are you?"

Almost as if in answer to his plea, there was the signature whine followed by the opening of a boom tube. Down the gateway, Barda slowly walked, her armor covered with blood around her arms and legs. There was a splattering of red and green fluids on her face. She looked at Clark with eyes that didn't seem to recognize him.

"Barda," he said softly, approaching her slowly as the tube closed. She walked past him without speaking, stopping only when she stood over the body of the other child with the black thing at her feet.

She looked back at Clark with no recognition in her face then back at the mangled body at her feet. "Her name was Malice Vundabar. Her uncle is ... _was_ Virman Vundabar." Then in a surprise motion, Barda blasted the child with her Mega-Rod. "Die!"

"Barda!" Clark yelled as he rushed to her and wrapped his arms around her, attempting to keep her arms locked to her side.

He wasn't prepared for her to blast him with her Mega-Rod as she screamed, "Back off!" The discharge from the weapon threw Clark against the wall. Then as if she had just swatted a fly, she calmly stood over the body and said softly, "That's her demon pet, Chessure at her feet." She paused. "You know, Kal, this is all my fault. Scott told me not to kill Virman ten years ago, but I didn't listen to him." Suddenly, she fired her weapon into the corpse again. "I should have listened."

Clark knew that he could move at super speed and take the Mega-Rod out of her hand, but Barda made the decision for him. She put her weapon away and walked over to the corner where Scott and Avia lay. She knelt down beside them. Clark approached her and started to kneel down.

"Don't you touch them!" she snapped. Clark froze and stood. Maybe this was some New God ritual that she had to perform. His eyes widened as she sat down in the pooled blood and rolled Scott over so that his head was in her lap. Then she gently lifted Avia so that the broken child had her head on Barda's shoulder. This was no New God ritual. This was a parent mourning the loss of a child, a wife mourning her husband.

"It's okay, my beloved," she said softly to Scott gently rocking his head in her lap. "Granny Goodness and Lashina will never bother us again. They won't bother anyone ever again." She pressed Avia closer to her. "We're going to go home now, baby. Mommy's going to take you and Daddy home, my precious."

She looked up at Clark. The tears flowed from her eyes. They ran from Clark's too. "They're okay, Kal. Really they are. You see, they're just tired and need to rest a bit. After all, they're not like you and me. They don't have the stamina for the long journey like we do, right?"

Clark nodded and sat down on the floor a few feet away from her. "Right, Barda," he whispered. He swallowed hard. "But we'll see them again at the end, won't we?"

She nodded, then broke down as Clark called Thunder.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

  
Terry fidgeted with his black armband until Bruce stepped on his foot. The old man had come to the Watchtower in the Batwing today. He always came for the funerals.

"Scott was my friend," Thunder was saying amid tears as she stood at the small podium. That was what they all said: _He was my friend. He saved my life more than once. I'm going to miss him. _Terry could recite it by heart. They'd said the same things at Gear and Shock's funeral, at Captain Marvel's, at Koriand'r's. They'd say the same at Terry's. Bruce must have heard the words a hundred times by now. He'd said them often enough.

Merina sat on Terry's other side. She held a handkerchief in one hand, but wasn't crying yet. When her turn came to speak, she'd just shaken her head and passed her turn to Static.

"I'm going to miss him," said Thunder. When she stepped down from the podium, she went to Barda and hugged her fiercely.

Too many funerals, too many dead friends, too many dead children of friends. Bad enough that every funeral reminded him of his dad's. How much worse was it on Bruce? Barbara had been the one to tell Terry about Grayson's murder, about Drake's suicide. How many deaths did the old man relive every time a new casket was lowered into the ground?

Flash spoke next, then Arrow. "He was my friend." "He saved my life." No words for Avia, he noticed. For some things, none of them had any words.

After, they stood before the wall of stars. Golden seals, some bearing names, some just initials, glittered like a broken galaxy. No one spoke as Superman flew up and affixed Scott's star next to Orion's.

Terry read off the names he could. Merina's dad was up there. Shock and Gear had stars. Both of Arrow's parents. Thunder's father. Nightwing. Too many Lanterns. Far too many names.

"Why does that one have an asterisk?"

Bruce followed where Terry pointed. "Deadman. Boston died before he joined the League. It's a long story."

"Aren't they all?" said Superman.

Bruce frowned. "Aquagirl?"

"Hm?" Merina was looking at her father's star.

"Tell me about the Green Lantern in your dream."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

  
The coat Merina had borrowed from Donna did nothing to keep out the cold. Donna had constructed a ring bubble to bring them to this high, cold, lonely place, but etiquette said they had to walk to the front door. Donna had her own field keeping her warm, and Fred and Terry were competing to see who could pretend best that he wasn't cold.

Superman didn't even shiver, but his mind was probably on poor Barda. Static had come to the Watchtower to sit with her and provide the shoulder for Barda that she'd been for him five years ago.

Merina kept her eyes focused on Superman as she followed the path up towards the temple. Red and blue and yellow splashed like a beacon through the slicing wind that tried to rob her of sight. Red and blue, but her mind kept playing tricks, telling her he ought to be in starker colors.

Everything was wrong. It was like viewing the world through colored lenses, each eye seeing different things. All through the funeral, she had watched the place where Scott's star would be affixed, and she'd _known _that his star had been there for years. In one ear of her memory, she could hear Avia laughing as she ran down a corridor, and in the other, only silence, as if the girl had never been.

How did she even begin to comfort her friend when half her mind screamed that Barda was mourning shadows? And what did that mean for the shadows in her own mind?

"You holding up okay?" Donna asked her, and Merina quelled a small flame of disappointment that Terry hadn't been the one to say something. Maybe he'd said enough already. He must have told the old man everything.

"Fine. I'm just cold."

Donna smirked. "You think this is bad? I got caught in an avalanche not far from here. That was cold."

"Yeah," said Fred. "Right up 'till you blasted your way out with your ring."

"That was when I got the ring. The Lantern before me was killed in the avalanche. The ring came to me and I managed to free us from the snow."

"Aislynn?" said Superman, his voice almost lost in the wind.

"Yes."

Merina heard him mutter something about having lost too many good people, and then they rounded the corner and saw the temple's tall wooden gates. A single guard watched them approach, hunched deep within his own fur-lined coat but unsurprised at their presence.

"This humble one bids you stop," said the guard.

Superman paused, and the others fanned around him. "We seek an audience with the Master."

"So the Master said," said the guard. "He said five would come. He said you would try to bring women into the temple."

Merina frowned at the tone in his voice. The amusement on Fred's face didn't help, though he dropped that when Donna punched him in the arm. Out of habit, Merina began to coax life into the water crystals surrounding them, swirling them gently.

The guard held up a hand. "We know who you are and what you can do," he said, nodding to Merina and Donna individually. "We have our rules, as you have yours. The Master is making his way here."

"We'll wait," said Superman, folding his arms.

A warm, green glow surrounded them. Donna had put up a field to keep the snow and the cold at bay. Another shiver went through Merina, and then she began to warm up. The field didn't extend to the guard, who remained impassive out in the wind.

The gates creaked open, and with a sigh, Donna dropped the bubble again.

A wizened little man, every inch the sage Merina had been expecting, walked calmly over to where they stood, unaffected by the weather. Behind him three priests waited as patiently as lilies.

"Superman," said the Master, in a greeting as chilly as the air.

Superman bowed his head. "It's been a long time, Master."

"Not, perhaps, long enough. When last we met, and Boston Brand left this realm forever, you were not a killer."

"Things change, Master." The note of reverence in his voice was just offset by the pique. "We've lost many friends since then. I'd like to keep more from dying."

"You see the death of your own as an evil." The Master shook his head. "We had such hopes for you."

Superman drew his hands into fists, and Terry touched his arm. "We came here for a reason."

"Yes, you did," said the Master. "A question." Merina had a bad flashback to her meeting with Hol, and then the little man said, "Ask."

"I've had dreams," she said. "People who don't exist, people nobody knows but me. I think one of them may be here. A boy."

"We have many boys."

"I ... I don't know his name. Kay? Ka? I'd know him if I saw him, I think." The face in her dreams smiled grimly, surrounded by emerald light. He was a child, and a man, and an adolescent, all at once.

The Master looked at her face, examining her for what felt like a long time. She sensed Terry shifting beside her, ready to go in attack mode, but she waited.

The Master turned away and gave an order to the attendants with him. One disappeared back through the gates. "We have a number of boys who might have that name. You may see if you know your friend."

Within minutes, the priest returned. Her heart sank. Twenty boys of all ages had joined him. The younger ones were clearly still learning the "pretending the snow didn't bother them" trick. The oldest was almost her own age. All bald as babies, all wearing the orange-saffron robes of the order, all slightly surprised at seeing Merina and Donna, or for that matter, the rest of them. These were not kids who spent their days watching superheroes on television, and had never seen superheroes, or women other than their mothers, in their lives.

None looked exactly like the boy she remembered.

Think! Hol hadn't looked like the woman in her dreams, either. The Hol Merina remembered had known how to smile, and she hadn't worn a mask. The boy in her dreams would have grown up as a Lantern (the youngest Lantern to ever wear the ring, said a voice that sounded like her own) not as an aesthete in the mountains of Tibet. Of course he would look different.

But without recognition from him, she couldn't say which one, if any, was the boy she remembered who might have been named Kay.

"I'm sorry," she said, examining each face one more time, and then turning away.

The Master gave a word to his pupils, who returned back through the gates. Just out of sight, she heard them break into a run. No laughter, though, nor the natural chatting and joking she'd expect from a group of little kids.

"Sorry for wasting your time," Fred said. "Can we go home now?"

The Master continued staring at Merina, not saying anything. Was he angry with her? Disappointed? She'd failed his test. She'd failed her own test.

She could explain Hol. She'd seen the old files on the original League, years ago. She could have pieced together a new life for her father's friend in her mind. Meeting her meant nothing.

And now ...

The boy was a dream, had been a dream. Like Micron, like Warhawk, like Enigma, created out of her own need for the world to make sense. She was living two lives, but one of them was imaginary, and if she couldn't separate herself from it, she'd get someone killed. The look on Terry's face, what she could see beneath the mask, was pity. The same was on Fred's and Donna's and Superman's.

"Let's go," said Superman. "Thank you, Master. We're sorry for the trouble."

The Master nodded, and waited, watching them go. The wind blew on her face as she turned away from him. The ride home would be long, though not long enough. At the other end, she would be handing in her resignation.

Behind her, she heard a strange sound: the muffled slap of sandaled feet on the snowy path.

"Wait!"

The boy, one of the adolescents, was flushed from his run, the ruddiness in his cheeks a strong reflection of the orange in his robes. In his arms, he clutched cream-colored papers. "Please wait," he said, gasping for air. He'd been gone for less than a minute. Merina had a sudden image of this child almost flying through the many rooms of the monks' quarters to seize the things he held against himself now so protectively.

"I drew these." Like a great secret, he handed her a picture of a woman. The ink-strokes were lovely and spare, suggesting detail with the natural spatter of light and dark on the paper. Merina saw curves barely hinted at, and a fall of hair like sheaves of wheat.

"I thought when I saw you that you were her. You are not."

"No." A handful of pictures, all of the same beautiful woman who was not Merina, but the face was from her dreams and she knew the woman's name.

"Cassie," said Terry. "That's Cassie."

**xxxxxxxxxx**


	4. Chapter 4

**xxxxxxxxxxx  
And All For the Want (4/6)**  
A Batman Beyond / Justice League Unlimited - R 'Verse Story  
by BillA1 and Merlin Missy  
Copyright November 2007  
Rating: (PG-13)  
**xxxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxx  
CHAPTER FOUR  
xxxxxxxxxxxxx**

"Cassandra," said the kid, his eyes wide with delight.

Terry ignored the look Merina was giving him until she said, "You knew."

"Yeah."

"Because you've been having dreams, too." She was gonna kill him.

He rubbed the back of his neck and stalled. "All this talk about dreams, sure I was thinking about them. I just figured you were rubbing off on me a little. Shut up, Arrow," he added, as GA opened his mouth.

"Who else have you seen?" She'd forgotten about the kid entirely.

"If you're asking about your dream-boyfriend, no."

"Warhawk isn't my boyfriend."

"Warhawk?" said the kid. "A bird-man, all in silver?"

Merina turned her head back towards the kid, and her face was strange. Terry's stomach went dead, just as it had when Max had told him she was splitting for Blüdhaven. His not-quite girlfriend was still with him, would still climb into his bed, would still wrap her arms around him and say the crazy things people did when they were sleeping together, but she wasn't his now, and never would be. That she'd told him this up front didn't make it easier, just less of a surprise.

The Master ambled slowly into view. "I see you have found your friend."

The boy said, "No, Master, but they know her. And the others in my dreams, I believe."

The Master nodded. "You must go with them on their journey, Kai-Ro."

Terror passed over the kid's face, to be replaced by calm. He bowed to the Master. "This humble one will go where you direct, Master."

"No," said the old man, touching the boy's arms. "You must go where your destiny directs. You have told me of your dreams since you were a small child. The time has come to find out what they mean."

Terry glanced at Superman. They were taking a kid with them to their headquarters? And let him be very clear on this, a kid trained by a guy who looked like he'd happily give Supes a kryptonite wedgie?

This was going to be interesting. 

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Clark flew beside Green Lantern's force-bubble. Sometimes he liked to travel inside, but now he wanted time alone to think on their way home. He hadn't missed Batman's concern over their new guest. None of the monks from Nanda Parbat had spoken to him in years, not since Boston left. Even the little temple they'd kept in Metropolis had been closed down and the priests who lived there vanished. The Master had never stinted in his disapproval when he thought someone needed it. Clark was just a little annoyed to be the one bearing the brunt.

Times were hard, had been hard. Hard times meant hard decisions, but Scott Free had been their first casualty in years, and that had to count for something. Clark's job was to keep things from going to hell, both on the planet and on his team, and if the Master didn't understand that, then Clark was going to have to be the bigger person and not point out that the League was the only thing standing between the Master and any number of alien invaders who'd gladly enslave the entire world.

To get his mind off the ingratitude of old associates, he thought about the pictures Kai-Ro had drawn. The girl was beautiful, yes, and strangely familiar. Kai himself was familiar. Much like when he'd first met Kara, meeting the boy didn't feel like a first introduction so much as a long-delayed homecoming of an old friend.

And of course, there were the dreams. Just a few, just brief flashes. He'd passed them off as fallout from listening to Aquagirl once too often, but now he was less sure, especially with Batman's confession of doing the same.

He knew the girl in the drawings, knew her as he would a niece, but he couldn't say why. Something about her eyes.

From inside the bubble, he could make out Aquagirl trying to get more information from the poor kid who was already bewildered at flying thousands of feet up in the air.

" ... and something happened in the spring," said Aquagirl.

Kai said, "If she was not careful, flowers blossomed where she walked." He smiled wistfully, the expression familiar to anyone who'd ever been a teenager.

"Yeah," said Batman, and Clark remembered that the pollen used to make Batman sneeze. And Warhawk too. They fought all the time, those two, except for the occasional truce brought on by who brought the tissues this time, and Cassie apologizing in embarrassment as the vines tangled around her feet.

The memory was as clear as day.

But "Warhawk" was the name Shayera took when she'd fled Earth, though when Clark had tried to ask her why, J'onn had hushed his questions with a thought. J'onn left too, after he'd lost Ming. They all left, all but Clark, who stayed to retie the unraveling threads over and over while friend after friend fell. He'd attended too many funerals.

Clark halted in midair, watched as Lantern's bubble streaked by him, then zoomed to catch up.

"What's wrong?" Lantern asked.

"Nothing. May I take one of those pictures?"

Kai-Ro jerked them back, not a conscious motion but a deep-rooted protective measure. With an obvious effort, he relaxed. "Have you come up with something?"

"I might have."

Reluctantly, the boy handed one of his precious pictures to Clark. Clark hid his smile and thanked him gravely. "I'll return this soon, and I promise not to let it come to harm. I'll see the rest of you back at the Metrotower."

He changed course. They had been passing close by, and he might not have even thought about it otherwise, but just a few hundred miles later he floated just outside of the sovereign airspace of Themyscira.

The guards didn't spot him at first, and he made a note to remind them that in modern times, attacks by air would be far more frequent than attacks by sea. Old habits. He finally had to resort to shouting to attract the attention of the warriors on duty. One waved with a smile, while her companion scowled.

"Why are you here, Superman?" shouted the grimmer one. She held up her spear, although she had to know it would have no effect on Clark.

"I've come to visit the Queen. Please tell her I'm here."

The two guards conferred. He thought about eavesdropping then decided against it out of courtesy. Finally, the smiling guard disappeared from view, though a quick sweep with X-ray vision told him she was headed back to the palace. Her companion waited on the beach, still scowling.

Clark changed position so it looked like he was reposing on an invisible lounge chair, with one hand behind his head and the other carefully holding Kai's drawing. He smiled at her and closed his eyes, enjoying the sun.

A few minutes later, he heard the air splitting around a flying object and opened his eyes long enough to see Diana hurtling towards him like a missile. He barely had time to react before she plowed into him with an enormous hug. The picture slipped from his hands as he hugged her back, and then he dove to grab the delicate paper as gently as he could before it splashed into the ocean. A few drops of spray clung to the surface, and he blew them off before they could smear the ink.

"And hello to you as well," Diana said, observing him as he cleaned off the paper.

"Sorry. I promised to return this to the artist undamaged." She raised an eyebrow, and his shrug turned into a grin. "Hello."

"You usually warn me before you show up." It wasn't quite an accusation.

"Something's come up. I wanted your input."

"So this isn't a social call."

"I'm not welcome to make social calls, remember?" She frowned at him, and her frown was as pretty as it had ever been. Diana hadn't aged a day since they'd met. Would that they could all say that. "Sorry. This is the second time today I've had to wait on the doorstep because someone wasn't the right gender. It's getting to me."

"This is why I should come visit you," she said, and the smile was back. "What do you need?"

"The answers to some questions. Arthur's girl has had some strange dreams lately. Things she shouldn't know, people she's never met. Today, she met one of them."

Diana nodded. "The Atlanteans have a long history of prophecies. I'm sure Arthur must have mentioned."

"It's not that easy. Batman," he saw the flash over her face, "the new one Bruce has been training up, he's been having the dreams, too. And coming back from our meeting just now, I would have sworn that I was remembering people I've never met too. Something's happening."

"Perhaps the three of you have been affected by a spell."

"That's what I'm wondering. One of the people we remember may be a sorceress of some kind. The boy we met today drew a picture of her." He held up the drawing.

Diana went pale.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

"And she didn't say anything else?" Barda's demand was the first she'd spoken more than two words to any of them in days. When Superman had asked her about the dreams, she'd barely nodded. Faces. She remembered faces, but no names.

"No," Superman said. "Just where to find her." Olympus, he'd told them. Queen Diana had been upset but wouldn't tell him why. Perhaps she'd fought with Cassandra before; not all her dealings with the gods were friendly. Merina could sympathize.

"Anybody know how to get to Olympus?" Terry looked around. "Then we're back to square one."

That wasn't entirely true. Neptune was the patron of her people, though in full truth, her people spent a large number of their prayers imploring the Sea Lord to turn his capricious attentions elsewhere. As for summoning a god ...

A green light glowed to life on the alert panel, and Jay-Jay zipped over the see what it was. "Perimeter alert," he said, punching buttons faster than she could see. The camera zoomed in on the front entrance.

Cassie stood at the door, smiling up at the camera and waving.

Terry said, "Um, that was fast."

Superman brought her to the conference room. If she really was one of the Olympians, he was the best-suited to deal with her in case she became unfriendly. Moments after meeting her, Merina knew she wouldn't be unfriendly, not to them, though she noticed that Terry kept his wary stance even when Cassie greeted him by name.

"Queen Diana asked me to see you," she explained, as Kai watched her with eyes as big as saucers. When she hugged him, Merina was sure his head would explode.

Yes, Cassandra had been plagued by dreams these past several nights. Names, faces, all of them familiar, but only just. She remembered Micron, thought his name might be Wayne. (Merina recalled at once a sunny day, Paris all around her, walking through this strange surface city while Micron spoke to her in a torrent of language she almost understood.) She remembered Enigma, and then Superman laughed and said he suddenly remembered the funny metal hat she wore sometimes.

"What do they mean?" asked Terry. "The dreams. We've all had them, fine. Why?"

"For the record," said Jay-Jay, "we haven't all had them. Lantern, Arrow, back me up here?"

Superman said, "Metamorpho hasn't, either."

"Neither has Thunder," said Arrow. "I asked."

"All right," said Terry, "we need to figure out who's not here who ought to be."

Merina nodded and said, "Since this is my party, I'll go first."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Fred had watched Donna slowly turn around and walk out of the conference room. He could tell she was upset even if she wasn't going to show it. He stayed behind for another minute and listened as the demi-goddess and the monk wannabe recounted all the people they knew as League members. Most of the names meant nothing to him.

There just had to be some kind of mistake. After all, he'd been in the League thirty years and had had a party to prove it. Yet why did Superman and Barda know these people and he didn't?

He walked out. It was like a class reunion for those people. They wouldn't miss him.

He found Donna in the recreation room. She was standing in front of a holographic image of that four-armed Green Lantern she'd talked to a couple of weeks earlier. He heard her say, "Galtos. Mid-day. In two days. Teta Hostel. Green Lantern out," just as the image faded.

She flopped down on the couch. She didn't look happy.

"Hey," he said as he sat beside her.

"Hey," she said as she looked at him somewhat distracted. "Why are you here? Did the reunion break up?"

"I left. Either they're going crazy or I am because I swear I don't remember anybody they mentioned."

"So you figured you'd find me and go crazy in my presence instead of theirs, huh?"

"Nope," he smiled. "Figured we'd go crazy together. I saw you in there. Don't tell me you knew any of those people they were talking about."

It was Donna's turn to move her head east-west. "I didn't," she said softly. "And I don't want to think about it right now because I don't know what that means either."

Fred leaned back, trying to find a comfortable spot on the sofa and yet not sit too close to her. "Well, I'm not the brightest bulb in the hallway," he said, "but the computer doesn't have any records of those people and you and I don't remember them. You know what that tells me?"

"That your hallway is pretty dark? I don't know, what does it tell you?"

He frowned. She would have normally smiled when she made a crack like that. "It tells me," he said, "that maybe there is some supervillain who affected everyone on Earth while we were in space getting rid of those Jennians. You know, making us doubt the composition of the League and stuff. And maybe we weren't affected 'cause we weren't here and they left the computer records the same to create confusion and .… "

Donna whacked him in the arm. Her frown deepened. "Stop before I get a headache. It's a great theory, Arrow, but it's got more holes in it than Swiss cheese."

"Oh, yeah? Name one!" That came out sharper than he'd intended, but the use of his codename stung more than he'd thought.

She sighed like she was about to explain something to a child. He hated it when she did that, too. "How about Aquagirl calling for backup from someone named Micron before we headed into space? Now everyone in the conference room seems to know the guy. You heard them. If your supervillain struck _before_ we left, why don't either one of us know who he is? Why aren't Rex, Anissa and Jay-Jay affected? They didn't go to Jennia with us. You got an arrow with an answer for that?"

The sulk started to creep up Fred's face. "No. I guess I should have said name five," he mumbled. Apparently, she'd thought of and discarded that as a solution as well. He sighed. "So either you, me, Thunder, Metamorpho, Flash, and the computer are right, or the others are. If we're right, everything stays the same. If they're right, these people exist, but no one knows where they are, and one person who might know says at least one of them is dead."

Donna leaned forward, brought her hands to her lips and stared straight ahead. "Except that two of them are in the conference room right now. Ever hear of Occam's Razor?"

"Sure. All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one." Crap. He mimicked her pose and stared straight ahead. "Oh."

"Exactly. Oh." She shivered. "I have watch later. I'm going to go get a little sleep." Watch. Yeah. He needed to go join Flash in Ops.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Terry stretched and he saw Barda hide a yawn. The list on the table hadn't grown in the past hour, and he didn't think it would. They had descriptions and a few partial names. He knew a little more than he was ready to say, thanks to Bruce, but also thanks to Bruce he'd learned how to hold onto information in case he needed it later.

The night was edging onwards. He needed to get back to Gotham and he wanted to get some sleep.

"We should reconvene in the morning," Superman said, just as Terry was about to suggest the same thing.

Merina was bouncing anxiously on the tips of her toes. "But we're close. We shouldn't give up now."

The little monk said, "We may remember more when we are refreshed. We have waited all our lives to find one another. An additional night should make little difference."

"I'll find the two of you someplace to sleep," said Metamorpho, who'd come in late to the meeting and stayed even though he said he didn't remember anything. He ushered their guests out with a look over his shoulder to Superman. He'd find them rooms and make sure they were secured.

Terry tried to come up with a remotely plausible reason to ask Merina to accompany him out of the room and from there back to Gotham, but then he saw her face as she pored over their small list, her feet tapping impatiently and her fingers resting on the paper against one incomplete name.

"Don't wait for me in the morning," he said to Superman, and left before he could say anything else.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Jay-Jay logged out of the computer and watched Donna login. He pulled her aside when she'd finished and pointed at Fred who had his back to them, entering notes in the computer.

"Arrow's in a really down mood," Jay-Jay said quietly. He paused as he whispered, "Are you two fighting?"

Donna's eyes widened then narrowed to a slit. "What do you mean, are we fighting? I'm not fighting with him." Her frown deepened. "And even if we were, what business is it of yours?"

Jay-Jay shrugged. "Well, he sure acts like you're fighting. He hasn't been right all shift and when lovers quarrel in this business, people get hurt. And I don't mean just emotionally, GL."

"We aren't lovers and aren't you off-duty?"

Jay-Jay frowned. "Like I said, he's in a bad way. Just thought you should know." The Flash turned and zipped out the door. Fred turned around at the swooshing noise, saw Donna, nodded at her curtly and turned back to his screen.

Donna was hit by an overwhelming sense of sadness and more than a little fear.

She'd been pushing thoughts, the painful thoughts, the fearful thoughts, out of her mind -- or at least to the back of it -- for the last several hours. If a Green Lantern was to do her job, she couldn't be distracted. Yet the biggest distraction of her life was hanging over her head like a scimitar.

Suppose none of this was real. Suppose everything she'd done over the last nine years, every student she'd taught, every emotion and touch she'd experienced, Fred, Justin, even this room was a lie. She shivered.

What was it the philosopher Chuang Tzu said when he awoke from his dream? "Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man." If this reality was a lie, then what was _her_ reality?

Had she been killed in that avalanche years ago? Worse, maybe right now this second, she was buried under tons of snow, freezing to death and hallucinating, her blood staining the frozen ice that surrounded her. God, what if the last nine years were, in fact, the last cogent thoughts of a dying brain, a brain trying desperately to hold on to life as it was slowly being frozen. Was that the reason she suddenly felt chilly?

She struggled to push the fear back to the recesses of her mind. She sat down at the console across from Fred, cleared her throat and tried to smile without much success. "Hey."

Fred turned back to look at her. "Hey yourself. How are you doing?"

"I'm okay. You?" He seemed to be feeling better than she was. She'd never admit it, but Fred had always been the one to lighten her mood. They'd been friends for nearly a decade, but over the past few years, he'd become her touchstone. Whenever she returned from deep space missions, whenever she walked into the League headquarters, his was the face she sought. It was seeing him that told her she was home.

What if Fred wasn't real? She pushed the thought away again.

"I guess I'm okay," he sighed, and she knew he wasn't just from the tense line in his back and the way he held his arms. He looked away. "No. That's a lie. I'm not really okay at all." He looked into her eyes. "I guess I'm a jerk."

Donna grinned. "Should I raise my hand if I agree or should I just wait 'til the end to applaud at this new self-awareness?"

Fred frowned and Donna's expression immediately flattened. "Look," he said. "I wanted to apologize for the way I've acted lately, especially on the day you gave me the knives."

She said nothing.

"It's probable not my place," Fred said quietly. "But I care about you and I've had all kinds of images in my mind about the way you might have to pay back that Green Lantern back for his help."

Oh.

Fred wasn't concerned about whether or not things and people were as they were supposed to be. He wasn't worried about the world not existing, about being a figment of her imagination. He was jealous.

Fred continued, "At first I was angry with you because I was sure there must be another way and you hadn't looked hard enough to find it." He lowered his head and paused. "Then I was angry with me for not realizing that you were only doing what you had to do if you were going to get your job done, and that I'm not helping by getting mad at you about it." He leaned forward. "I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry."

Donna frowned. _This _was what he was worried about? "You're right. It's not your place and you are a jerk."

Fred's eyes widened. Her words were not what he'd expected, sure, but she felt the panic returning when she spoke them. Fate had teamed them together and while they'd both lived with the chance of sudden death every day, things were different now. Now she was facing the prospect that not only might tomorrow never come, today and yesterday had never happened, either.

"I care about you, too." Her eyes narrowed. "But I don't need your approval on the way I have to do my job." She was silent for a moment, then leaned toward him. "Fred, every night I grade homework for the kids in my class. Every night I determine how valuable the information they give back to me is based on how much effort they put into it and how difficult the assignment was. Tor-Chal is no different. He has determined his price and I will pay it. On Friday." Which might, on the bright side, never come.

She got to her feet. Fred stood as well. "I understand."

Donna shook her head. "You don't, but it's okay. It was a mistake for me to let you witness the communications between Lanterns. I guess I thought you'd get it, but maybe that was too much to hope for." She stepped closer. "Because I really wanted you to understand ... needed you to understand. The very last thing I ever want to do is cause you pain."

He smiled. "You mean no more pain than normal, right?"

"Right. No more pain than normal."

They stood silently looking at each other, just an arm's length away. Finally Fred said, "This is dumb. I'm a grown man. Why should I keep beating around the bush when it comes to telling you how I feel about you?"

Her heart warmed. "Because it's hard," she ventured. "Opening yourself up to someone, knowing you could be hurt." And for a moment, that ghost was in the room with them again. She'd worked up the courage to tell Justin how she'd felt, and then found out he'd been screwing up his own courage to tell her the same thing. Five perfect weeks and one awful day later, all her fears had come true. But she'd never give up those five weeks for anything, and if she gave up whatever time was in front of her now because of fear, she might as well already be dead.

_Go_, she said in her head to the sad apparition, and then it was just the two of them. She took Fred's hand in hers. "It's worth it, though."

Fred slowly smiled. "So, what do we do now?"

Donna made her mask disappear and was pleased by Fred's reaction to her maskless face. She moved her hair off her shoulders and said, "I hope I don't have to draw you a picture because this is the part where you kiss me."

He removed his mask and she smiled. She'd known for some time what he looked like without the mask. And then she didn't have time to think about how he looked because he was taking her advice and kissing her. It was a long, lingering kiss and she was sure he never noticed the green aura that surrounded them both, though she hoped he felt the same warmth she did, of a thousand tons of ice and snow melting away forever.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

_They are everywhere, but Kai-Ro does not worry about Hourmaster's minions. He clears his mind and focuses the power of his ring. If the villain enacts his plan, he will change the distant past and wreak havoc on the future._

_-xxx-_

Bruce is shouting in Terry's ear: "Forget the drones! If he gets the portal open, none of this will matter."

Terry swears and turns off the comm. He can't be distracted now. He throws a batarang at the nearest two 'bots to get them out of his way. From above him, Warhawk is clearing a path ahead of him, firing at the drones and dodging blasts from the human thugs.

-xxx-

Clark plows through the drones, has to pull his punches just enough for the humans. Hourmaster has been planning this for months. He's had all the time in the world, Bruce said when he sent the information, but Clark was long used to Bruce's gallows humor.

He hears a noise unlike the rest, a terrible crack, and he spins to see Lantern go down, his head awash in blood.

-xxx-

Merina reaches Kai's side first. He's breathing, but he's going to need a lot of help fast. There's not much water in the air here, and the ice field she erects protecting him won't last under many blows.

"Wonder Woman!" she shouts, and Cassie fights her way over.

-xxx-

Barda discharges her Mega-Rod at Hourmaster, but he ducks. Three of his goons attack her. She swats them away as Batman zooms past her. She sees Micron in the middle of a pile of drones and goes to help.

-xxx-

Terry tackles him to the ground and gets a foot in the stomach for his pains. Hourmaster rolls away and fire burns across Terry's right arm. He cries out from the unexpected pain, pulls out a batarang with his left hand, but it goes wide.

-xxx-

Cassandra touches Kai's head, whispering prayers as she stanches the blood flow. If she gets him back to the 'Tower or a hospital, he will be fine, she's certain, but something terrible shakes her in her stomach. The time vortex is opening.

-xxx-

"Superman!"

Batman's voice carries over the rest, and Clark zooms in on his position. The vortex! He flies, faster than light, faster than sound, but Hourmaster is slipping through, is gone. Clark's hand grasps only air as the vortex slams shut.

-xxx-

The goon Barda is about to strike touches something on his belt and vanishes in a bright light. Her fist hits only air.

-xxx-

Merina watches, too far away to do anything but groan. Warhawk lands beside her, fear writ large on his face.

Cassie grabs her wrist and closes her eyes. "Remember."

She goes to ask what on earth Cassie means, but the time wave is upon them. 

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Merina opened her eyes. Her arm went out beside her, but she was alone. She could still feel Cassie's hand on her wrist. It had all seemed so real.

Her ear buzzed. "Aquagirl?" Terry, from wherever he was tonight.

"Here."

"His name was Hourmaster."


	5. Chapter 5

**xxxxxxxxxxx  
And All For the Want (5/6)  
**A Batman Beyond / Justice League Unlimited - R 'Verse Story  
by BillA1 and Merlin Missy  
Copyright November 2007  
Rating: (PG-13)  
**xxxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxx  
CHAPTER FIVE  
xxxxxxxxxxxxx**

They met in the conference room again, this time amid yawns and bleary eyes.

"I couldn't stop him," said Superman. "I was so close."

"We all tried," Barda said. "It wasn't your fault."

Kai-Ro rubbed his head. "I do not remember anything after I fell."

"Not surprising," said Terry as he came into the room. "You're lucky to be alive."

Merina turned to Cassie. "Can you do that? What you did to my memory?"

"I don't know. I've never tried. I suppose it's possible. That would explain why you and I remember."

"The rest of us were there," Superman said. "Further away."

Terry said, "It was spring."

Kai smiled. "You never could control your powers in the spring." Cassandra lowered her head and blushed.

Merina tapped her fingers on her arms nervously. "So it's real. It's all real. We're on the wrong timeline."

"It's not that easy," Terry said. "This guy Hourmaster screwed up our timeline, sure. But we don't know when."

Superman said, "We might." He touched his ear. "Full League meeting. Now." He turned to Merina and Terry. "Get Static and Bruce."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Terry had filled the old man in as best as he could, but Bruce was never one for giving out information and stayed silent for most of the trip. Not that Terry had been oversharing recently, either, but he at least had the good grace to feel bad about it.

Someone had started the coffee, and even the monk was drinking a large mug, and vibrating gently in his chair as he drank and sketched a picture of Hourmaster. Superman put a cup into Bruce's hands, and after a moment, Bruce started drinking.

Terry took a cup and sat beside Merina. She didn't look at him as he sipped at his coffee, and that told him most of what he needed to know.

"This guy ... " he began.

"If I called for you from across another universe, would you hear me? Would you come?"

He couldn't answer, and that told him the rest. He took another drink, and the burn on the way down wasn't entirely from the coffee.

Static was the last to reach the Metrotower. Terry had never seen him look so tired or so old. Static sat beside Metamorpho and played with his coffee cup while they waited for Lantern to put on the automatic sensors and join them. Arrow came in with her, and Terry was pretty sure he wasn't the only one who noticed how rumpled his costume was, and how Lantern's hair was out of place. _That can't end well,_ he thought, and then he glared at Bruce.

"We're on the wrong timeline," Superman said when they were all seated.

"Says who?" asked Arrow. "I like this one." He jumped, and Terry was certain Lantern had just kicked his foot.

"We all had the same dream," Barda said. "We were there."

Flash raised his hand. "Pointing out again, not all of us."

Merina said, "Jay ... "

"The kid's got a point," said Metamorpho. "I haven't had any dreams. Lot of us haven't."

Flash said, "We talked about mind control. What if you're being manipulated?"

"They're not," said Bruce. "Virgil, you came to the future. What do you remember?"

Static sat back in his chair. "Not much. It was a long time ago. I met you," he said to Terry. "You were younger than you are now. I think you were still in high school, maybe a little older. I appeared in the BatCave. We fought."

Terry felt a shiver run through him. "That's not how we met."

Bruce made a noise. "What about the rest of the League?"

"I didn't meet anyone but the two of you. And myself. I saw an image of Gear. You told me about Justin."

"That's it?"

"No." Static closed his eyes. "We were in Gotham. There were Jokerz. I was helping you free the older me because I'd been kidnapped by Kobra. I saw a lot of splicers on that trip." He looked around the room. "But the world wasn't quite the same. I didn't see much, but it didn't seem like things were quite as bad. I don't think Dakota or Central City were nuked."

Bruce asked, "Did you see them? Did someone tell you?"

"No."

"Then you're not sure."

"Bruce," Terry said suddenly. "Tell the class about _your_ trip to the future."

Bruce turned his head. "The cities were ruined. The League was all dead except for you and Static."

"And?"

"And Warhawk. Not Shayera. Her son." Bruce took a long drink from his coffee mug while Merina sat bolt upright.

Superman said, "You should have said something."

"It wasn't my story to tell." Terry already knew this part, at least the bare bones of it. He hoped it didn't show too strongly on his face.

Superman said after a long pause. "You went on that mission with John and Diana." Bruce nodded. "Diana said she didn't have any memory of it afterwards. The two of you didn't say anything either, just that you'd gone and fixed the problem."

"We did. That's all anyone needed to know."

"Except someone told Hol," Lantern said. "There's no way she took that name out of the blue."

Arrow said, "Didn't you say she'd said something about telling a joke on herself?"

Superman continued watching Bruce. "John was Warhawk's father, wasn't he?"

Bruce set his cup down. "In that timeline. In this one, obviously not."

"And he told her?"

"Eventually. Speaking kindly of the dead, I don't think he intended to be cruel."

"Wait," said Metamorpho. "You mean John Stewart?"

Superman nodded. "Did he tell you anything? I knew the two of you were close."

"Apparently not that close. He never said a word about it. You think you know a guy."

"You did," Merina said. "He named his son after you, remember?"

Metamorpho cracked a smile. "Well, that's something, anyway."

"All right," said Superman. "So we all — " he held up a hand at Flash's open mouth, "I mean, most of us remember things that happened with someone who in another timeline was John and Shayera's son. We remember people who aren't part of the League," he said, nodding to the monk and the goddess, "and we remember people we're not even sure exist anywhere."

"It's a time glitch," said Bruce. "Like my trip to the future and Virgil's visit with Junior here."

"'Junior?'" asked Terry.

"It didn't happen. You keep the memories, and you keep moving."

"But we are no longer on the correct path," said the monk.

"No," said Arrow. "We're no longer on _that_ one. Okay, so you guys remember some things before this Hourly guy screwed things up. But here we are."

"Exactly," Bruce said. "We don't get to pick and choose the future we like best. We live in the one we have now."

Lantern looked at Merina. "Do you know what happened to the rest of us in the other world?" She played with her ring as she did, and absolutely did not look at the boy.

Merina shrugged. "I've seen Static. Jay, I remember that you and I went to Rex's birthday when we were little. I think the three of us were friends."

"But not the rest of us," said Thunder.

"I don't know! Cassie didn't hand me a guidebook."

"Sorry!"

"So we could be dead," Lantern said. She turned to Arrow. "Or not born at all."

"Scott and Avia might be alive," Barda said quietly. To Static she added, "Justin could be alive."

"This is ridiculous," said Bruce. "You're second-guessing things that never happened."

"They did happen, Bruce," said Superman. "You just didn't tell us."

"It was a pocket timeline. I destroyed it when we left. It never happened. I made sure."

"We have to narrow it down," Merina said, ignoring him. "Hourmaster must have interrupted things after your jump to the future, but before Stewart died."

Superman said, "Arrow, your father went to the future with John and someone else. It was a few weeks before John died. Did he ever tell you anything about it?"

"Dad never said much about his League work."

Superman tapped the table. "Maybe Kara wasn't supposed to go into the future, either." Oh, right. Supergirl.

Terry went to the console at the end of the room and began a file search. Flash zipped over to him. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Looking." Now that he knew what he wanted to find, it wasn't hard. The League kept records of everything. He pulled up the report on the battle where Stewart had died.

"Ouch," Flash said, reading the casualty list over his shoulder. "That couldn't have been pretty."

"It wasn't," said Bruce.

The mission had been to recapture some low-lifes called Toyman, Atomic Skull, Killer Frost and Giganta, right after that near-Apokolips problem fifty-odd years ago. Stewart and Hol had been on the mission with Metamorpho, and another Leaguer Terry didn't immediately recognize, a woman. The situation had gotten out of hand. More baddies showed up, and the team had called in for reinforcements. Stewart and the woman – Vixen – had been killed and they hadn't been the only ones. A guy named Question. A woman named Doctor Light. A guy named Dove. Heavy injuries on the League side.

As he read, he felt the others walk up and surround him.

Metamorpho swallowed. "I missed a lot of what happened. I didn't wake up for a week."

"You were lucky," Superman said. "Hawk went crazy afterwards. Hunted down the man who killed Dove. There wasn't much left by the time we got to him."

Metamorpho asked, "How long was Shayera drunk after that?"

"Two months," Superman said. "And a week after she sobered up, she married Carter."

"Yeah," Metamorpho said, nodding. "Never did like that guy."

Arrow said, "There was something about that in her record. He died, she went into space."

Superman shared a look with Bruce. "That's mostly true. What wasn't in there was that we lost Jay's grandfather a few days before we lost Carter." Flash quirked his mouth into a smile. He'd once told Terry that his grandfather had died right before Jay's mother and her twin were born. The League never stopped creating orphans.

On a hunch, Terry pulled up the record on Hawk. There were a few photographs of the scene where they'd found him. "Does that costume look familiar to anyone else?" He zoomed in on the clock on Hourmaster's chest.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

Donna fidgeted with her ring. She couldn't seem to stop doing that, not since they'd met the boy. In the other universe, he had her ring and Donna was dead.

And as it turned out, that was the right universe after all.

She'd known as soon as Stewart's name was mentioned. He'd been the Lantern of this sector long ago, one of the greats. After his death, his ring had bestowed itself upon one who was ... not as great. She'd never met Gardner, though the story was Lantern lore for better or worse. Less than a week into his training, he'd made the wrong remark to the wrong Lantern, and then the Civil War began.

She didn't blame him. She couldn't. The explosion had been coming for years before Gardner's out of hand comment, and there was hardly a Lantern among the Corps at the time who hadn't helped pile dynamite all over the place. There was no use blaming the idiot who happened to drop the match.

Thousands of Green Lanterns dead. Sectors lost from the Guardians' jurisdiction forever. Too many planets blemished during the struggle. Over fifty thousand humans had died on Earth alone in that awful battle five years in; the echo left in her ring from Lantern Rayner still wept for the deaths he could not prevent, even though he spent the rest of his life rebuilding.

Could Stewart have prevented the war? He would have delayed it, at the very least. Not forever. Maybe long enough.

The list of the dead was still on the screen. What was Vixen like? How would her life have unfolded without interference from Hourmaster? If Dove had lived, Hawk wouldn't have lost his mind. She'd never heard of the Question, but surely someone mourned him. Who was Doctor Light supposed to have been?

No one would mourn Donna in the other timeline. Her boyfriend Karl had been with her on the mountain. He'd have died under the ice and snow too, instead of dumping her three months later when he couldn't handle how much time she spent performing her new duties. Seven years she'd trained and saved up for that trip. It was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime.

Donna looked at the boy. He'd sketched out the image of Hourmaster from his dreams, real as life. The rings chose artists, dreamers. Sometimes Donna wondered why her ring chose her. She couldn't draw. Her ring constructs were nothing special. Justin used to admire them, but he'd been biased, and then he'd died in a Kalanorian ambush, another casualty of a timeline that didn't have to be.

"We have to stop him," she said.

"I don't see a time machine handy," said Static.

Donna said, "That's because you don't know where to look." She held out her right hand. "Green Lantern rings can create passages through time. It's risky, it consumes a huge amount of power, and if the Guardians find out, it's a sure ticket to getting drummed out of the Corps."

Fred said, "Thought you said the Guardians aren't really in charge anymore."

"It's a bad idea," said the old man that Batman and Superman called Bruce.

"We'll need a team," said Aquagirl.

Flash said, "We haven't decided if anyone's going. Let's not start picking team members yet."

Thunder added, "I _really_ don't like the idea of randomly screwing around with history."

"Chronos did," said Bruce. "He almost destroyed the world."

"One change," said Aquagirl. "We're talking about stopping one villain who isn't even supposed to be there. That's not destroying the world."

"You can't know that," said Fred.

"Except that we do," said Batman. "We know, because we lived it."

Barda said, "We vote. We might change the world. We might destroy it. At least make it fair."

"Fine," said Flash. "Not those two," he said, pointing to Kai-Ro and Cassandra.

"Deal," said Aquagirl. "I say we go."

"I say it's too risky," said Flash.

"I'll take that risk," said Barda. "Go."

"Go," said Batman, and at the same time, Bruce said, "Stay."

Thunder said, "Stay."

"It's gonna be trouble," said Fred. "Stay."

"Go," said Static. "I'll lead the team."

Superman looked around the room. "Stay."

"What?" said Aquagirl and Barda at the same time.

"Bruce is right. We shouldn't mess around with time unless we know exactly what we're getting into. That doesn't mean we shouldn't think about more options."

"We know our options," said Static. "We accept what's happened, or we fight for something better. Give me the fight any day."

Bruce said, "Then why didn't you save your mother?"

Static balled his hands into fists. Donna watched the energy cascade around them until he finally relaxed his grip. "Point taken. But it's hard coming from a guy who'd do anything to have his own parents back."

"That's why we can't go back," said Bruce, a strange passion in his grizzled voice. "The temptation is always there. Change the past now for what seems like a valid reason, and next time is a little more grey, and a little more. Save our friends once, fine. But what if they die the next day? Do we go back again? Where do we draw the line?"

"We're good at finding the lines," Metamorpho said. "That's our job. I say we try it."

"So it's a tie," Flash said. "Five for, five against. We stay and figure something else out."

"No," said Kai-Ro, looking at Donna. "Green Lantern has not voted."  
She felt the cold creeping around her, ice in her veins. She heard the roar of the mountain as the side gave way and there was nothing to hold onto. The breath was knocked from her body. She'd die and she wouldn't ever have held her ring in her hand, wouldn't have flown across the galaxy, wouldn't have saved the world or ever even dreamed that she could.

It'd be awful to die without having ever done anything.

But it'd be worse to die knowing she might have prevented all of this but had been too scared to try. "Go."

"Thank you," said Aquagirl, her eyes bright with gratitude. "All right, Static, it's your team to choose, but I want to go with you."

"No," Donna said. "This is a one-way trip. I won't have enough power left in the ring to come back. I'll go alone."

"You'll want backup," said Metamorpho. "This guy took out my best friend and put me in the hospital for a week. I'll take some payback."

"What about afterwards?" asked Bruce. "You'll fade out of existence."

"But I'll still be alive in the real timeline," said Metamorpho. "That's the beauty of it."

"I won't," said Donna. She wouldn't look at Fred. She couldn't. She looked at Kai-Ro instead. "You're going to be the youngest Lantern ever to wear the ring. You better do a damned good job, or I swear my universe-hijacked ghost will haunt you for the rest of your life."

Aquagirl stared at her. "Lantern?"

"I died up there with Aislynn. We never met."

"I change my vote," said Static. "Don't go."

"Me too," Aquagirl said. Barda shut her lips tight, but didn't say anything.

"Now they listen," Bruce said, and sat heavily in a chair.

"It doesn't matter what you vote," Donna said as kindly as she could. "I'm the one with the ring, and I'm going now. Rex, are you still in?"

He nodded. "I want to see John again. And if we don't fade away immediately, I might even get another glimpse of Saph, you know?"

"I know," she said. She absolutely was not looking at Fred as she said, "It's been an honor, guys."

"Good luck," said Superman, and he shook Metamorpho's hand, then Donna's.

Aquagirl gave her a long hug, and then to her surprise, so did Static. "Stay safe," he told her.

A few more handshakes, a few more hugs, and it was time.

"What's your plan?" Bruce asked.

"We go to the iron works," said Metamorpho. We get there before Hourmaster, and we take him down before he hurts anyone."

Donna nodded. "Keep it simple."

She stared down at her ring. She could do this. She knew in her bones that she could, though her bones weren't helpful on the "How?" Donna closed her eyes and willed a passageway through time to the morning of the day John Stewart died, and she felt the ring's power wash warmly over her, creating a liquid bubble that stretched to envelop her and Metamorpho.

"Later, guys," she heard Fred say, and then he stepped neatly into the bubble just as it closed and whisked the three of them away into the past.

**xxxxxxxxxx**


	6. Chapter 6

**xxxxxxxxxxx  
And All For the Want (6/6)  
**A Batman Beyond / Justice League Unlimited - R 'Verse Story  
by BillA1 and Merlin Missy  
Copyright November 2007  
Rating: (PG-13)  
**xxxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxx  
CHAPTER SIX  
xxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxx**  
(One Week After Darkseid Invades Earth)

_Damn him._

It was the first thought Donna had once the bubble deposited them at the old iron works. She'd not counted on Fred stepping into this mess, but she wondered if at some subconscious level she left a doorway in her bubble for him to step in. No one got into a Lantern-created forcefield unless the ring wearer wished it. She just hadn't let herself known she was wishing.

Now there would be no one in the other timeline who would remember her, who would mourn her loss. Damn him. But there was no anger in her cursing. She was glad he was here. If she was going to die, she was glad he would be with her here at the end.

There was no time to think about death right now. Her ring wouldn't connect to the central battery. This was bad. She knew she didn't have enough charge in her ring to get them back to their timeline, but she'd thought she could consult the central battery and use its knowledge database and chronometer until her ring was empty. The central battery didn't recognize her or her ring. It could be because there was another Green Lantern of sector 2814 ring connected to it, or maybe this was how the Guardians ensured the Lanterns didn't mess around with time.

"Hey, GL! You with us?" Metamorpho asked. Fred stood next to her, not quite as nervous as she thought he might be, having just signed on for a suicide mission.

She nodded. "Yeah. Just thinking."

"Good, because I'd hate for you to miss any part of this meeting," Rex said flatly. "This looks to be the right place." He looked up in the sky, then back to Donna. "I think it's close to the right time." He paused. "You got a fix on the local time yet?"

She took a deep breath. Bad news didn't get better with age. "No," she answered. "And I don't have much juice left. We'll have to wing it."

Both men were silent for moment as if the finality of this mission had just hit them. Metamorpho placed his hand on her shoulder. "Okay then," he smiled at her. "We adapt and overcome, just like old times in the Corps. Well, my old Corps." He removed his hand. "We wait, but I need to be clear on something before we get started. No prisoners and no failures. Everyone understand?"

Donna nodded. So did Fred.

The three moved off toward a cleared out area nearby where they could watch the foundry. They settled in to wait. Rex became a fog bank and enveloped them, but he ensured they all had an unobstructed view of their target area.

There was a flash of bright light. Near the foundry door, not more than thirty meters from where they stood, Hourmaster and three armed goons appeared. He looked just like the boy's drawing. Fred drew an arrow from his quiver.

"Did the others say anything about reinforcements to you?" he hissed.

One of the goons stopped and looked at the fog bank they were in, then glanced up at the sky. He said something to one of the others, then suddenly drew his weapon and fired at them. Donna threw up a protective bubble around herself and Fred while Metamorpho let the laser discharge pass through him.

She dropped the bubble and just missed hitting Hourmaster with a mallet she'd constructed. Another goon fired at her and she ducked out of the way of the blast.

Fred fired his net arrow at the thug next to Hourmaster and it pinned the man against the foundry entrance, blocking Hourmaster's way. The man poured a liquid over the netting and the webbing dissolved. "I think they were ready for us," Donna said as Fred pulled out another arrow.

"Less talking and more fighting," Metamorpho growled as he shot a fireball at the goon to Donna's left. The thug rolled on the ground and came up throwing a grenade at Metamorpho. Mason jumped toward the grenade and changed his body composition so that he completely absorbed the blast and the shrapnel. Then he formed all of the metal fragments into a ball and threw it back at the guy.

"Here!" Mason yelled. "You lost this!" The metal ball hit the goon in the chest with sufficient force to kill him instantly.

Donna grabbed the guy who'd had fired at her by the ankles with her ring, picked him up and slammed him into the ground hard. The cracking sound was sickening. She turned her attention to her primary target and threw up a wall that the fleeing Hourmaster ran into. Stunned for a moment, he took a device off his belt. Donna didn't know what it was and she didn't want to know. She formed a glowing green crate around him.

Fred fired a boxing glove arrow and punched the goon who'd escaped from his net arrow. The man dropped to the ground. "Best thing Dad ever invented and it still works."

Donna heard Metamorpho shout again, "No failures!"

She yelled at Hourmaster, "You've been a bad boy. Drop it!" She hit Hourmaster's fingers with a constructed yardstick so hard that he dropped his little toy. She wasn't sure that she didn't break his hands, but she really didn't care.

Metamorpho grabbed Hourmaster around the arms. "Let's go." He forced the villain to an area on the backside of the foundry where they were met by Fred who had dragged the three limp bodies of the goons.

Hourmaster writhed in pain from the crushing grip on him and from his now swollen hands. "How'd you find me?" He squinted. "And who are you?"

"Call us the dream team," Fred said. "Why are you here?" Fred growled at the man. He had drawn a hunting arrow and aimed it at Hourmaster's head.

"I don't have to tell you anything."

"Oh, I see," Mason said, extending his neck around the villain so that he was facing Hourmaster. "You think we'll turn you over to the authorities. Sorry, pal." Metamorpho's arms became iron vices and he squeezed Hourmaster as he continued. "But you thought wrong. Y'see, we're not from the League now." He tightened his grip. "We're from a League that's been through a lot of hell because of your little field trip through time."

In moments, Hourmaster was screaming from the crushing grip, "Toyman! I was here for Toyman. I was going to take him to the future and put him to work inventing for me." Donna was sure Metamorpho would crush the man to death if he didn't give the answer he wanted. She'd never seen this side of her friend before. She didn't think anyone had.

They were from another League, sure. But they were still Justice League. "Metamorpho," she said with a warning.

"You're lying!" Metamorpho screamed back, not hearing her or not caring. "Toyman escaped from Green Lantern and called for reinforcements."

"Or we thought he did," Donna said. "Hourmaster took Toyman and one of the baddies here must have called for the reinforcements. That's when Lantern Stewart got killed." She paused. "I think we did it. I think we got here in time ... at the right time."

Fred nodded. "Okay, now what?"

"Metamorpho, let loose," Donna said.

"That's not how we're playing this one, Lantern."

"Do you want payback or justice, Rex?"

He squeezed again and Hourmaster squeaked. "I'll take both."

"Not like this," Fred said. "He won't hurt anyone ever again. We're going to make sure."

Hourmaster's eyes were practically popping out of his purpling face as Metamorpho held him a heartbeat longer and then went slack, still holding him but no longer crushing him. Donna nodded, then ringed an airtight bubble around Rex, Hourmaster and the three goons. "No prisoners. No failures."

She and Fred watched as Metamorpho continued to restrain Hourmaster while part of him turned into a clear gas. She reminded herself that this was for the greater good as she watched the man struggle against the body holding him firm and what she knew to be poison gas. How many atrocities over the years had used "the greater good" as their rallying cry? Had any of _them _ever done so to keep their future selves from having to do the same? Finally, the criminal who had been known to them as simply Hourmaster slumped in Metamorpho's arms and was still. Mason dropped him to the ground beside the bodies of his henchmen.

When Metamorpho gave her the signal, Donna dropped the bubble around him and the four dead men, as Fred said softly, "That's it then. We're done and our own timeline's gone."

She wondered how it would feel to fade out of existence, wondered if her dad had been right and she was about to be judged for what they'd just done, what they'd all done over the years.

"Maybe," Rex answered. "But we're not quite finished. We have to get rid of these bodies so that there's no evidence of what happened."

Donna frowned and then it came to her. She turned to Fred. "Give me some rope from one of your arrows." Fred actually looked physically ill as he broke one of his arrows to get to the cord. "Here," he said, grousing as he handed it to her.

She handed the rope to Rex. "Tie them all together tight, as tight as you can." She retrieved the device Hourmaster had been fiddling with. If he'd planned on taking Toyman back with him, he had a portable time machine, and sure enough, this looked to be the very device. It looked simple to operate. Donna said to Rex, "Pick a number between 200 and 230."

"214," he answered as he completed tying the criminals together.

"Nice choice." She keyed in the number and then said to the others, "Step back." She surrounded her team in a bubble and using her ring put the device on the dead Hourmaster and pressed a button. In a couple of seconds, there was a whine and the four bodies disappeared in a flash of light.

"Where'd you send them?"

"To meet the dinosaurs. 214 million years ago in the middle of the Triassic Period." She added, "Dinosaurs were going to be part of next week's lesson plan. No need to waste the knowledge."

Fred managed a smile. Metamorpho didn't join him. His frown deepened. "Have we seen the last of this Hourmaster guy?"

Fred snickered. "Well, if GL did it right, he's having lunch with a T-Rex about now."

"Yeah," she said, watching the spot where the bodies had been. "Guys, do either of you feel like you're about to fade out of existence?"

Fred shook his head and Metamorpho shrugged. "I feel like that whenever there's a strong wind."

"We took care of things," Donna said, more to herself than them. "We shouldn't be here anymore. Our timeline never existed."

"Maybe we have more to do," Fred said, and indicated the iron foundry, where just past the corner, Donna could make out Toyman and Giganta approaching.

"We can't get involved," Metamorpho said. "This is the real history happening right now. We shouldn't even be seen."

"Right," Donna said. "Rex, can you bring up that fog again?"

Things unfolded before them, forcing them to back away as the League arrived. Donna watched Lantern Stewart enter the foundry with Hol, felt Metamorpho chuckle around them as his younger self came on the scene. "Wow, did I ever look young," he said quietly.

The explosions shocked them. The sight of Metamorpho being blown to bits, even as he was surrounding her, broke her head a little. "We should go help," she said, as Fred pulled her back beside him.

"This is where we don't interfere," he said, even as the foundry collapsed in with Stewart and Hol inside.

"But we came here to save him," Metamorpho said, and the fog was shifting, and he was about to do something stupid.

"Wait," Donna said, although she didn't want to, and it hurt worse as they watched Fred's mother come in with the rest of the League, saw her fight with the reinforcements the villains had sent and heard her cut off scream as another explosion took down a still-standing wall on her and Doctor Light.

"I'm going down there," Fred said.

"You're not," said Metamorpho, and together, heartsick, they watched the League below them remove Rex's lifeless body. "Not quite how I expected this to go," he said quietly.

As the day dragged on into a chilly night, they kept an eye on the recovery efforts. Their comms let them listen in on some of the League traffic, but the news was bad.

"We were too late," Fred said, as they heard the status of his mother's condition: stable, compound fracture in one leg. The younger Rex Mason was dead, and there was no sign of Stewart or Hol among the living. Vixen had survived uninjured. Dove and Question didn't get so much as a hangnail. Was this the change they needed? Would it change everything?

Donna's ring hummed in and out of life. She used the little power she had to scan the debris from their location. "I can't pick up Stewart's ring."

"So?" asked Fred.

"You can't destroy power rings. It's like it's just … gone." And with no ring, Gardner wouldn't become a Lantern. No match to light the fire. It might be enough. It had to be enough.

With the coming of the night, Metamorpho had dropped the fog and resumed his normal form. "I came on this mission thinking I was going to die. Looks like I was right."

"I think we fixed it," Donna said. "Look, you're dead, and that's bad."

"But you weren't in the League in their dreams," Fred said, picking up on her thoughts.

"Yeah," said Donna. "And Lantern Stewart and Hol are missing, but you've heard the comms. No one has found anything."

"Transporter?" Metamorpho asked, hope dawning on his face.

"Could be," said Fred. "Maybe they got blasted to the other side of the universe by accident, and they take a while to get home. Could be that Warhawk comes along on their way back. Gets kind of boring traveling in a big green bubble after a while. They'd have to do something to pass the time." Donna couldn't stop her smile.

"What are we going to do?" Fred asked, while they kept out of sight of the news choppers searching the area with spotlights.

"Watch," said Metamorpho. "Stay out of the way of history. I remember these guys. I remember who I used to be. They're not like us. They don't do the things we do. Not sure I blame them." He looked over where the other heroes were still looking through the rubble. "Me, I'm thinking that a year or two from now, I'm going to look up Sapphire."

Donna said, "Are you sure that's wise?"

"I've been getting better at human forms." A wide grin split his face. "And this would be motivation to practice. Don't worry. I won't tell her it's me. I just want to see her again." He sighed. "What about you two?"

She looked at Fred. He took her hand and squeezed it. "We'll figure something out," he said. "Anywhere in particular you'd like to go?" he asked her.

The romantic in her wanted to answer, "Anywhere with you," but neither of them was much for romance, and anyway, she'd already made up her mind on one important thing.

"Someplace warm."

**xxxxxxxxxx**  
(Sixty Years From Now)

"Remember," Cassie said, and Merina stared at her until Cassie finally dropped her arm.

"What was that?"

"Hourmaster was about to unravel history. I wanted to fix a copy of the proper timeline somewhere."

Merina rubbed her head. "That explains the headache. Anyway, it doesn't look like anything changed."

Beside her, Rex was kneeling down beside Kai-Ro. "C'mon, buddy," he said, gathering their friend into his arms. "I'll get you to a hospital."

"Be careful," said Merina, noting the blasts that had scored his armor already. He gave her a little nod and a tight smile that said plenty and promised more, then took off.

"Little help, people?" came Micron's voice over the comms. "These guys are vanishing." Even as he said it, Merina saw a goon three meters away pop out of existence amidst a bright light.

"Got it," said Terry over the comms, and there was a small explosion where the main machine used to be.

Merina looked at Cassie and they began a sweep of the area around them to clean up the remaining henchmen and take stock. Hourmaster had gotten away. An unknown number of his goons were with him. Lantern was hurt pretty badly. What a lousy day.

**xxxxxxxxxx**  
(One Week Later) 

Kai-Ro had the late watch, his first since he'd recovered from his injuries. The night was proving quiet, which appealed to him. Enough anger had radiated through the corridors of the Metrotower these past several days to last him many battles' worth of aggravation.

The perimeter alert glowed green. Kai-Ro pressed the button to see who it was, and then a pleasant smile came to his face.

"Welcome, Shock," he said, and let his old acquaintance into the building.

Justin prepared his own coffee while Kai opted for a glass of milk; his experiments with caffeine always had gone awry. "How've you been? How's everyone?" Justin asked him as he measured out the grounds.

"We are well. The usual problems have surfaced. If you see any of the others, do not say 'teamwork' in their presence. It is currently functioning as a curse word."

Justin laughed and sat down across from him. The coffee machine mumbled to itself in the corner.

"How is your family?"

"We're doing okay. Dad and Uncle Richie are redesigning our headquarters. I think they're bored."

"I have heard you are working with Green Arrow again."

"Yeah. Fred relocated to Dakota a few months ago. We're trying to do some teamups, scare the bad guys, you know."

"I know."

Justin sat back. "Dad's talking about working more with the League."

"I had gathered." Kai allowed himself to wonder if Justin would say more, but instead, Justin went to get his coffee. Static's team hadn't been the only ones to walk, run, or back away slowly from the League. When Superman had been overtaken by the Starro creature, he said --- after --- that he'd retained some small amount of awareness and control, and had driven away the rest to protect them. The only ones who had stayed were those who had no other place to be, like Kai-Ro himself, but orphans, outcasts and misfits had always constructed the core of the League.

Justin returned to his seat and stared at his coffee.

"GL?"

"Yes?"

"Remind me. How did you get your ring?"

"I found it in the temple's garden. It sang to me from among the leaves."

"You were really little."

"Yes." Four years old, and the Guardians had been most displeased. Lantern Stewart hadn't been happy either but he'd trained Kai anyway and then handed over the sector. Some days Kai didn't know whether to thank him or send him a paper bag filled with flaming dog excrement.

"And the Lantern before you?"

"Aislynn. From Odala. She died not far from the temple." He took a sip of his drink. The ring had recorded the last few moments of her life, which had been horrible, if mercifully brief: a rescue mission gone wrong and no survivors. "Why do you ask?"

Justin moved his cup around in his hands. After a while, he said, "You're going to think I'm crazy. But … I had this dream."

**xxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxxxxx  
EPILOGUE  
xxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**xxxxxxxxxx**  
(Key West, Florida - 13 Years From Now)

Ollie stretched his arms and groaned a little as something popped. The ache in his muscles wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, but at least Merlyn wasn't going to be causing this part of Florida any more problems. He managed a jaunty little wave as the police car pulled away from the curb, and was rewarded with a growl from the bad guy, muffled by the doors.

Not a bad day. Well, night. It was almost nine, local time.

He went to touch his ear for a transport and then stopped. He was hungry and wanted some dinner, sure, but canteen food didn't sound appetizing. A quick visit to a handy alley, and he was out of the Robin Hood getup and back in street clothes, taking a stroll and looking for a place to grab a bite. He rejected the big chain places out of hand; mom n' pop joints didn't always have the best food, but Ollie was big on supporting the local economies when he could.

He turned another corner and a grin spread under his beard. He just hoped the name "Quivering" didn't mean the place doubled as a porn shop. Wally was still teasing him about the last time.

The lights were lowered in the restaurant, candles and a few darkened lamps providing what illumination they could. Dinah would have called it atmospheric, and he made a mental note to bring her back here if the food was good. The waitress, a pretty thing about his age, took his order with a smile, and kept his coffee cup filled while he waited for what turned out to be the best eggplant Parmesan he'd ever tasted.

While he ate, his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he noted with amusement the framed news clippings along the walls. His own masked face was prominent in the pictures, as were Dinah's and Kyle's. The waitress flipped the sign on the front door to "Closed," and when Ollie went to pay the check, she stopped him.

"Don't bother yourself," she said, with a grin. "You eat free here, Mr. Queen."

"I couldn't do that," Ollie said.

Behind her, a guy came out from behind the counter. The cook, from the way he was dressed. Where the waitress' face was split with a grin, his smile was more nervous.

"It's all right," said the cook. "Call it a trade."

Ollie slipped a friendly smile on his face even as he tensed for another fight.

"A trade for what?"

The cook came over and sat down across from him. "You know your secret identity is the worst-kept secret in the League, right?"

Ollie scowled. "I wouldn't say that."

The waitress laughed and went back to the coffeepot. She brought over a cup for the cook and refilled Ollie's cup.

"It's all right," said the cook again. "Look, you could say I'm a big fan. I'd really love to hear about some of your adventures. Please?" The guy had to be older than Ollie was, silvery-grey shot through his thinning blond hair, but he sounded like one of the kids who begged him for his autograph on the street.

Ollie glanced at the waitress. "Won't the missus object to the time? It's kind of late."

"'Missus?'" asked the waitress, and snorted. "You lock up, okay, boss?"

"Thanks, Jen," said the cook. As she collected her purse and left, the man said, "My wife is home grading papers tonight. Trust me, she won't mind." The guy put on a half-smile. "And speaking of wives, please pass on my best wishes to yours. I hear she's due soon."

"Next month," Ollie said grudgingly. The ultrasounds looked great, and they were trying to pick a name for him.

Ollie took another sip of the coffee. Dinner _had_ been fantastic. Maybe it was worth a story or two for a fan. "'Worst-kept secret,' huh?"

The guy did grin then. "Yeah. But I won't tell."

xxxxxxx  
The End  
xxxxxxx  



End file.
